


"fuck this fucking simulation"- midas, probably

by CalmSpirited



Category: Fortnite (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26652817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalmSpirited/pseuds/CalmSpirited
Summary: A simple place where i can dump all of my fortnite fanfics without having to worry about having 1739213 different works at once.ratings and tags will change as i go.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	1. childhood trauma

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Just wanted to start this off by saying that even though I'm still heavily into the DBD fandom, Fortnite now has wormed it's way into my heart and will not leave me be so this happened.
> 
> TBH a lot of these will probably involve Midas and my OC (who I'll shove in here eventually no shame), but I'll definitely write about others as well. Jules is a queen and we stan and Skye & Kit is too wholesome for this world.
> 
> I'll leave the rating as teen & up for now but there is an almost certain chance of naughty stuff happening eventually. I will put a warning at the beginning of each chapter if there's things like sex, drugs, torture, etc- but if there's no warning then it's safe for your puppy to read :)

To a six year old Midas, having to be quiet got old pretty quick.

He knew Jules didn’t feel well, and Mama had told him before she and Marigold left “ _ Shhh, be quiet! Jules needs her rest or she’ll never get better.”-  _ but he couldn’t be quiet in his room  _ forever _ . 

He had been playing with his toys for a while now and Midas wanted to go outside, but he knew he couldn’t. He wasn’t allowed to go outside without his parents or his sisters because he might fall into the water surrounding their house on their island. Midas had thought that rule was silly until he slipped in wet grass and got a mouthful (and eyeful) of water, mud and sand. Then it seemed like a sensible, well-thought out rule that he should always obey so he wouldn’t be scrubbing mud out of his hair for another hour.

But Midas was  _ bored _ . Toys having been played with, books having been read, teddy bear having been hugged, Midas’ short attention span was burned out and he wanted to do something else. With cautious footsteps, he slowly crept towards his bedroom door and cracked it open to peer down the hall. Midas hadn’t heard Mama or Marigold come back yet, and the faint sound of his snoring sister with the TV still playing in the living room told him that Jules hadn’t moved from her designated “sick spot” on the couch.

The door squeaked softly as he pushed it open all the way, and Midas took his favorite teddy bear- a small blue bear he had named Mr. Jam- and tip-toed as quietly as he could into the living room to find Jules. His stomach rumbled as he got near the end of the hallway, and Midas remembered that it was probably time for his lunch.  _ Another  _ good reason why he should wake his sister up.

Holding Mr. Jam tightly at his side, Midas peered around the corner of the living room and saw his sister Jules, buried under three heavy blankets and snoring with her mouth wide open. Midas couldn’t help but giggle at the sight, even though he knew he was the one who got her sick in the first place-  _ and  _ she took a picture of him sleeping like that last week.  _ Karma. She got what she deserved! _

But still… Midas knew it was rude to wake her up. They didn’t wake him up while he was sick unless it was to take medicine or eat. But he was  _ hungry _ , and Mama and Papa had told him not to mess with stuff in the kitchen by himself. That he was too small and too young and he might get hurt. He thought that rule was stupid too until he had tried to stand on a chair to get the cookie jar and fell, giving himself a nasty bump on his head.

Walking over to Jules, he toed the trash can at the foot of the sofa filled with soiled tissues and gave his sister a light shake.

“Jules?” He asked quietly, but he didn’t get a response other than Jules’ continued snoring. He shook harder.

“Jules?” Jules’ snoring broke this time and her lips moved, but she still didn’t wake up. Midas sighed, impatient and shook her again.

“Jules!” He said louder this time, and Jules finally looked at him through slitted, glossy eyes, groaning.

“What, Midas?” She bemoaned, rolling on her back and tried to cover up her head with blankets to dissuade her brother. “I’m sick, leave me alone.”

“Mama and Mari aren’t back yet.” Midas tried not to sound scared, but he was getting worried- they only went to the store to get gas for their boat and medicine for Jules. They should be back by now! Midas took a quick glance at the grandfather clock by the TV. He didn’t know how to read minutes yet, but he could read hours, and they had been gone for over one hour.

It shouldn’t take them that long.

Jules pushed the blanket off her head and gave Midas a glassy-eyed look. “Calm down, pipsqueak. They’ve been gone like…” He watched Jules’ eyes move to look at the grandfather clock he was just looking at, and saw her eyes narrow at the ticking hands. He doesn’t wait for her to count the minutes.

“It’s been over an hour!” Midas exclaimed, tummy rumbling loudly. “And I’m getting hungry.”

“Yeah, they should be back soon.” Jules, sounding like she was trying to dismiss his worries, nevertheless wrapped the thickest blanket around her and got up with a loud sniffle and a crack of a bone somewhere in her small body. “I’ll get you a snack, Midas.”

Midas watched her shuffle into the kitchen, wrapped up like an old woman and found it hard not to laugh at her. He couldn’t help it- she was just so funny looking! 

Apparently he didn’t fight it hard enough, because she turned her head to face him once she got to the fridge, a hand on the white handle. “What’s funny?”

Midas giggled. “You look like an old lady.”

Jules rolled her eyes at him and opened the fridge, looking inside for a brief moment before grabbing a small cheese, raisins, and crackers plastic snack pack and handing it to Midas, letting the door closes on its own. “Just eat this. Mom said she was making dinner later.”

“Okay.” Midas said, taking the snack in his non-teddy bear holding hand and waddling to the table with it. “You’re not hungry?” He asked, and got a cough in response.

“I can only taste my own boogers.”

“Ew!” Even though that was gross, Midas still ripped open his snack pack and picked at a few cheese pieces before deciding which one to eat. As Mr. Jam sat contently next to him in his chair, Midas continued munching on his snack for a while until he heard the sounds of footsteps outside which meant that Mama and Mari were home finally and-

Midas blinked.

He looked down at his snack, mostly eaten and touching a cheese block told him that his snack was getting room temperature- which was fine, but the cheese didn’t taste as good as it did when it was chilly. Quickly eating the rest of his snack faster than he probably should have, Midas left Mr. Jam in his chair while he threw the plastic container away and washed his hands and lips, the cheese and raisins he had eaten leaving sticky spots on his fingers and mouth. Once he was no longer sticky, Midas went back to the kitchen table and picked up Mr. Jam and walked back into the living room.

Jules had her eyes closed and was laying back on the sofa under piles of blankets, but Midas could tell she wasn’t asleep. Midas walked to stand in front of her. “Can I watch TV with you?” He asked, pointing to the remote on the coffee table.

Jules groaned, but nodded. “Yeah, but keep it down. My head hurts.”

Smiling, Midas grabbed the remote off the table and sat down in the big armchair and flipped the channels until he found some cartoons to watch. They entertained him for a couple of episodes until one came on that he had already seen before. His six year old mind had been thoroughly entertained and preoccupied with the cartoons, but now that his cartoon watching was no longer fun, he was reminded of the fact that Mommy and Marigold hadn’t come back yet.

Midas looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it was much later than the last time he looked. It was six in the afternoon, and they had left right after lunch at noon. A quick count in his smart little head told him that they had been gone for more than six hours. Midas instantly felt a ball of worry form in his chest.

He looked over at his sister for comfort and saw that she was asleep, and he thought about waking her up again. He knew that she needed to sleep to feel better, but Mama and Mari should have been back hours ago and dinnertime was going to be soon, meaning he would be hungry again soon.

Worry and concern getting the better of him, he left Mr. Jam in his chair and padded over to his sister, shaking her hard. “Jules, can- can you wake up?” The sun was just starting to set, making the dark corners of the house seem just a little bit darker than usual. Midas can’t remember ever spending a night without Mama or Papa before, and he didn’t want tonight to be his first night. Not that he was  _ scared _ , but… okay, maybe he was getting a little bit scared. But if Jules was awake, he wouldn’t feel  _ that  _ scared.

Jules tossed and turned away from him. “What, Midas?” She sounded grumpy, but Midas didn’t care. She needed to be awake- this was a dire situation.

“Mommy and Marigold have been gone for a  _ really long time!  _ What if something happened to them?”

Jules sneezed wetly, making Midas stick out his tongue in disgust. “I don’t know why they haven’t come back, Midas, but they’ll be back soon, I promise.” Midas knew that Jules was trying to make him feel better, but her voice wasn’t as strong as it usually was, even while sick.

It only made him more worried that Jules was unsure of where Mama and Marigold were- Jules seemed to always know where Mari was. Mama had told him that they must have some special bond because they were twins. “What are we gonna do if they don’t come back?” Midas whispered, fighting back tears prickling at the corner of his eyes. He knew he was right to be worried, but crying would only make his nose runny and his eyes dry. He sniffed snot away and blinked away a stray tear.

Jules sighed, and sat up on the sofa to face him. Without getting permission, Midas climbed up to her and leaned against her small frame. Even though she was only three years older than him, she wasn’t that much bigger than him and their forehead bumped together. One of her arms snaked around his body and pulled him to her.

“Hey, don’t cry!” She told him, pinching his arm which made him squeak. “If they don’t come back tonight, Papa will be home tomorrow morning.” Papa had gone to Craggy Cliffs tonight to meet with someone about some treasure he was looking for, and he said he would be home early in the morning. “If they aren’t back by then, you know Papa will be all over the place looking for them.”

While it was reassuring remembering that their father would be home tomorrow, Midas was still worried about why they weren’t back yet. What could’ve happened to them that they were gone for so long? Mommy always made sure that if she did have to leave while Papa was gone that she would be back as soon as she could. Besides school, this was the longest that Midas was left without his parents.

“Can- can I sleep with you tonight, Jules?” He didn’t want to sleep alone when Mama or Papa wasn’t home.

Jules laughed, thick with phlegm. “We both can’t sleep on the sofa!”

“I can make a pillow fort!” Him and Marigold  _ loved  _ to make pillow forts together, and always ended up trying to knock each other’s down by attacking the forts with pool noodles. The prospect of making a pillow fort excited him so much that before Jules could give him an answer, he had raced to his room and started grabbing all of his pillows and blankets and stuffed animals that he could in his small arms. Racing back into the living room, he threw them all into a pile in front of the sofa.

“Leave me room to get up, dingus!”  _ Oh _ ,  _ yeah _ . Midas used all of his strength to push his pile far enough away so that Jules had room to get up in one motion. It didn’t take him long to get every single pillow in the house (except the ones Jules was using) and have them on the floor in the living room. Midas thought about how Papa might not be pleased about having his good pillows on the floor, but Midas was six and he didn’t care about getting good pillows dirty.

By the time he had constructed his grand pillowfort just the way he wanted it, he had to turn on the lights and lamps as the sun had gone in for the night. Jules had dozed off again and Midas decided to let her sleep even though he was feeling a little bit hungry again. It was okay, though, because he was getting really sleepy himself and his favorite game show was on, and Midas found himself asleep before he could remember the show going off.

The rattling sound of keys turning in the front door woke Midas up, and he blearily blinked and rubbed his eyes as he looked around the interior of his pillowfort. He was confused as to why the pillowfort had a door on it, until he realized that it wasn’t the pillowfort making that noise- it was the living room door making the noise! The sound of his Papa’s heavy footsteps was instantly recognizable, and Midas’ little heart swelled because  _ maybe  _ Papa knew where Mommy and Marigold were!

Quickly climbing out of his pillowfort, Midas looked around the living room and saw his father looking around and closing the door behind him, his eyes landing on him and the pillowfort behind him.

“Papa!” Midas threw his arms open and ran towards his father, forgetting to be quiet for a moment until Jules made a noise of unhappiness from the sofa. He felt bad for waking her up, but felt a lot better when his Papa picked him up in his strong arms straight away.

“Is that  _ my  _ pillows on the floor, little Midas?” His father teased him, and Midas giggled in guilt and mischievous, clinging to his father’s arms.

“Maybe...?”

“Well, now they’re dirty and they’ll have to be washed, thanks to  _ you _ .” His father’s smile that always seemed to be there fell after a moment, and Midas wondered for a moment if he was really upset about the pillows.

“Jules, where’s your mother?” Midas knew usually by this point Mama would be up working or having breakfast, or the very least she would come to the front to welcome Papa home, so that meant that Mama still wasn’t home.

Unable to wait for Jules to answer, Midas started talking. “Mama and Mari went out yesterday to get gas for the boat and medicine for Jules’ cold, but they never came back!”

Papa’s face suddenly had an intense look of worry cross over it that Midas had never seen before. It made him anxious “They haven’t called or anything?” Midas shook his head. 

Papa put him down, much to his disappointment. “When did they leave?”

“After lunch yesterday.”

Papa looked to the clock. “That’s like... 16 hours.” He then kneeled down to Midas’ level and picked him up for just a moment, placing a kiss on his cheek before plopping him back down. “Did you go outside and look for them?”

Midas shook his head. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go outside without supervision. This must be a trick question, and he passed it with ease.

His father nodded. “Good. I’m going to have a look around outside in a little bit once it gets fully daylight. Would you two like breakfast?”

Midas nodded eagerly, suddenly remembering his dinnerless night as Jules finally sat up from the sofa, her black hair loose and flying everywhere. “Maybe some toast.” She muttered as she got up and went towards the bathroom, sniffling and clearing her throat.

Papa laughed at her actions and walked with Midas into the kitchen, picking him up and putting him in a kitchen chair as he went to make breakfast- which ended up being eggs, cheese and toast for him and Papa, and just a single slice of toast and some orange juice for Jules. She could barely eat the toast, but did really like the orange juice because she drank it all, Midas noticed.

After breakfast was done and they had cleaned up, Papa made sure Jules was comfortable on the sofa before kneeling down to Midas’ level again. “Midas.”  _ Uh-oh, serious adult voice. _ “Do you want to come help me look? I know you must be  _ dying  _ to run around outside.”

Midas nodded eagerly; he  _ did  _ want to run around outside. He hadn’t been outside in forever!

“Okay, let’s go get you dressed and we can go look.” Midas could dress himself! ...but he did need help making sure his socks were on the right feet. He always put them on backwards and didn’t have a fun time with them like that. They felt really weird on his feet.

“I can dress myself!” Midas protested.

His Papa laughed. “Are you sure? Just make sure to put your socks on right.”

After nearly putting his socks on the wrong feet, Midas wanted to  _ run  _ out the door and go looking for Mommy and Marigold, but Papa held him tightly as he was picked up and held to his father’s chest. 

“Are you  _ sure  _ you haven’t heard from them? No calls or anything?”

“No, Papa. I’m really worried!”

“I’m sure they’re fine, Midas.” But Midas could tell that Papa really wasn’t sure of himself- his eyes were shifty. “We’ll look around the island for them. Emmaline! Marigold!” His father’s voice carried a long way. Midas was sure that everyone on the island of Apollo could hear him! Mommy and Mari  _ should  _ hear them and know how to come home, right?

But as his father called and called and walked around the island, both Mommy and Marigold failed to reappear. And, his Papa pointed out, the boat that they used to leave the island was gone and nowhere to be found, which means that they left, but never came back. Where could they be, then?

“Okay.” Midas could hear the slight hoarseness in his father’s voice, now beginning to wear itself out from yelling so much. The sun was now fully up and making Midas sweat a bit in his clothes. “I’m going to take you back inside and I’m going to call the police, okay?”

“The police?” Oh no, did that mean they were really lost? If Papa was calling the police, that means that he really didn’t know where they were, and Papa was a treasure hunter, he could find anything-

“Yes. I... don’t want to, but I don’t know where they are, and if they’ve been gone for that long… do you know where they went?” Midas watched his father stop to stomp the dirt off his shoes at the doormat.

“Mommy just said she was going to the store. And to get gas for the boat.”

“That means that they probably went to Pleasant Park.” Papa pushed open the front door, and deposited Midas in the armchair next to Jules, who was flipping through the channels. “Chill here with Jules for a moment, okay?” Midas nodded, and Papa walked over to where the phone was in the kitchen, leaving him to converse to Jules about which cartoons to watch.

“Yeah, hey, this is Hector- Emmaline’s husband. Yes, hi, Igor, how are you?” Midas shamelessly eavesdropped. He had to to find out what happened to his mother and sister! “Listen, my wife and my daughter Marigold- did they come into your shop yesterday in the early afternoon?” Midas watched his father pause and rub his chin. “They did? Okay, what time did they leave?”

Midas stomach did a weird flop when his Papa’s hand jerked from his chin to his hip, his knuckles turning white from his grip. “Yeah, no, they never made it home, apparently. Yeah, yeah, you can, uh, go ahead and do that. Thank you so much, Igor- yeah, thank you, bye.” Papa slammed the phone into the receiver, walked into the kitchen, out of view for a moment then walked back out, running his hands over his face before sitting on the edge of the sofa next to Jules’ feet.

“Do you think something happened to them on the way back?” Jules perked up.

Papa’s hard look cracked into a weary smile. “Eavesdropping much, you two?”

Midas giggled, caught red-handed. “No! You weren't being stealthy.”

Papa chuckled. “No, I suppose I wasn’t. Now listen, you two- there’s going to be a policeman who's going to come by here on a boat and I’m going to go with them to search for your mother and Marigold. I want you two to stay here and I’ll come back to give you some lunch and I’ll bring Jules some medicine, okay?”

Bottom lip poking out, Midas crossed his tiny arms. “I want to come help you look!”

“I know you do Midas, but the best thing for you to do is for you to stay with Jules. She’s sick and you might need to help her. Secondly,… this is an adult thing, Midas. We can’t keep an eye on you  _ and  _ look for your mother and sister. Do you understand?”

Midas didn’t agree with it, but... he understood and gave a small nod. Papa quickly stood up, pressing a kiss to both of their foreheads before moving to grab his coat and keys by the front door.

“I’ll be back by noon, okay? And if your mother and Marigold end up coming back home, tell them to call Igor’s to let him know they’re okay.”

“Yes, Papa.” Midas, cradling Mr. Jam to his chest again after picking him up out of his pillowfort, latched onto his father’s leg when he tried to leave, capturing his knee in a deathgrip until a larger hand unlocked his arms.

“Everything’s going to be  _ fine _ , Midas.” Another kiss was placed on his head. “And please, go brush your hair. It looks like a rat’s nest.”

Midas giggled. He tried to smooth it down by licking his palm and wetting his hair, but Papa made a disgusted noise and pulled his hand back down. “Midas, that’s gross. Young boys go  _ brush  _ their hair, not lick it. That’s what cats do.”

Midas stuck out his tongue, and Papa stuck his tongue out as well as he stood up, opening the door and closing it with a final “Love you!” before leaving Midas with Jules alone in their house again.

Midas walked over to grab the remote, but Jules snatched it up and hugged it close to her body. “Not after you  _ licked  _ your own hand.”

“ _ Fine _ .” Rolling his eyes, Midas waddled into the bathroom to go wash his hands as Jules muttered something about  _ “boys are gross” _ and turned the TV onto another cartoon show he liked.

_ Maybe things would be okay _ , Midas told himself as he turned on the bathroom sink, reaching for his hairbrush.  _ Mommy and Marigold are tough. They can handle anything! _

__________

Papa came home early.

Well, not too early, but the big hand was only a little bit after 10 when the sound of a boat engine, a familiar one, roared over the sound of the cartoons on TV. The sound of  _ their  _ boat.

Jumping up, Midas tried to look out the window in the kitchen to see who was on the boat, but he was far too short to see out of it. He contemplated grabbing a chair and standing on it to look outside when the door was unlocked and Papa came through the doorway.

Midas threw his arms out, running at light speed from the kitchen all the way to the front of the door in a few seconds. “Papa!” He cried out, throwing his arms around his father’s legs, expecting a hug in return from him, and for Mommy and Mari…

But he only got a large hand on his back, rubbing for a moment before gently pushing him to the side as he stepped inside and closed the door. It was weird because  _ Papa  _ always hugged him back, even if he did bang his pointy chin against his Papa’s sore knees.

Worried that something was wrong, Midas looked up and saw that his father looked tired. Very, very tired and his face was red as well as his eyes. Had Papa been crying? It looked like he had been-

“Midas.” His father looked down at him, gave him a weird look, before sighing so loud that it hurt Midas’ eardrums and picked him up with both hands under his armpits, hugging him to his chest. His father carried him to the sofa, where Jules had stirred awake again and was eyeing both her father and the bag he was carrying.

Papa pulled a small plastic bottle out of the bag and handed it to Jules before making his way to the kitchen. “There’s six pills in that bottle. You take one with each meal until they’re gone.”

Jules nodded, happy to finally be able to get rid of her cold and thumbed the bottle eagerly. “What did you get for lunch?”

“Oh, some chicken and dumplings from the farm. Igor gave me some. Are you two hungry?”

Midas nodded, tummy starting to rumble while Jules shrugged. “A little bit.” She mumbled, but Midas noticed that she still eyed the food with interest.

Midas watched as his father took out the small plastic trays and set them on the table. He noticed that there was only two- apparently, his Papa wasn’t hungry.

“Aren’t you going to eat, Papa?”

“Not now, no.” He said, wadding up the bag and throwing it away after it had been emptied. “I’m going to go out in the shed. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

“Okay.” The siblings both acknowledged, and Midas watched his father walk out the back door and outside towards the shed without further circumstance. Midas knew something was weird with Papa, but he was too hungry to say anything now. He was also too busy trying not to get his food on the table because dumplings got messy.

When he was done, he noticed that Jules had nearly drank all of her orange juice and had eaten half of her chicken and dumplings, which is more than what he’s seen her eat in days.

“Can you taste better now, Jules?”

“No, but Igor makes really good food.”

Midas giggled. “He does! Hey, don’t forget your medicine!”

Jules pulled a face as she looked at the bottle. “I remember you almost threw up when Mom made you take one.”

“Yeah, they don’t taste good. But they work!” Midas remembered that it tasted  _ horrible,  _ like really burnt three-day-old fish and it made him retch, but by the end of that day he felt like he could catch a flopper with his bare hands.

He watched Jules open the bottle and stick her nose into it for a moment before she pulled back, a curious look on her face. “They don’t stink.”

_ Oh, yes they did.  _ “I think your nose is stopped up.”

“Hmmm.” Jules eyed the pills in the bottom of the bottle before picking it up and shaking one out into the palm of her hand, inspecting it. “That’s probably for the better.”

Midas couldn’t contain his giggles when Jules popped it in her mouth and swallowed it with a gag, quickly grabbing her orange juice and swilling it down to get the taste out of her mouth.

“I told you they tasted bad!”

“That’s so nasty, ew!” Jules finished her juice and stuck out her tongue, wiping it on her napkin. “That’s disgusting! Whoever made these should go to  _ jail.” _

“When they make you better, you can put them in jail yourself!”

“You bet I will!” Jules grabbed his empty tray along with hers and got up to throw them away. “I’ll go right up to them and kick their knees first, then I’ll drag them to jail!”

“Actually, can  _ I  _ kick their knees?” Midas asked, waiting behind Jules to wash his hands at the sink. She turned around, eyebrows raised.

“Midas, you’re too short to kick a grown-up’s knees!”

“Well, I can headbutt them.”

Jules giggles. “Okay, you can headbutt their knees and I’ll drag them off to jail.”

Midas opened his mouth to agree on their little plan, but then the back door swung back open, revealing their Papa who looked at the scene in the kitchen with even redder eyes.

Midas could tell  _ this  _ time he really had been crying. Midas had only seen his Papa cry one time before when Grandpa died last year. “Papa, are you okay?” He asked, and Papa looked at him- through him, and didn’t answer for a moment.

“Yeah, uh- are you- are you two done eating? Jules, did you take your medicine?” When they both nodded, Midas watched his father pick up the pill bottle, checked to make sure the lid was on tight, and placed it in a cabinet above the stove. “Good. I need to, uh, talk to you both.”

“Have the police found Mommy and Marigold yet?” Jules asked, and Midas saw Papa wince like he had stubbed his toe. Why would he do that? What was wrong?

“They…” His Papa started, but then stopped, rubbing a hand over his mouth and Midas thought for a moment he would start crying because his face scrunched up like he had tasted something sour.

Midas suddenly had a very bad feeling in his chest. He may only be six, but everybody told him he was a  _ very  _ smart six year old, and he knew when something was wrong. Papa was acting like something terrible had happened.

“Where’s Mommy and Mari, Papa?” He asked, a bit bolder than Jules, and he watched a single tear escape from the corner of his Papa’s brown eyes before it was hastily wiped away. Papa didn’t answer him, instead walking away from them and taking a seat in the middle of the sofa, staring at the cartoons they had left on the TV.

Midas is very happy that Jules comes up and holds his hand, even though he watched her wipe her nose with the back of that very same hand just a moment before. Midas looked up at his older sister when she looked down at him, and she led him into the living room and made him sit next to her when she sat down next to Papa, whose cheeks were wet with tears now.

Midas was only six, but he had a decent grasp on what was going on.

“Did they get hurt?” He asked, hoping it wasn’t anything serious.

“They… did.” Papa said, running his hands over his face several times before he spoke again, clearing his throat. “They did get hurt really bad.”

“Are they in the hospital? Can we go see them?” Jules' grip on his hand tightened as she said that, but loosened every second that went by that Papa didn’t answer them.

His sister’s next words weren’t a question. “They aren’t in a hospital.” Midas watched tears form at his sister’s eyes. “ _ Papa- _ ”

Papa chuckled, but it was sad and it made Midas sad just hearing it. “You’re so smart for your age, Jules. You always figure things out so fast. And you too, Midas.”

If Mommy and Marigold had been hurt really bad but they weren’t in a hospital and Papa and Jules were crying then-

Midas knew what “being dead” was. He had figured it out after Grandpa had died. Grandpa wasn’t alive. He didn’t come around anymore, wasn’t showing him his coin collection, wasn’t putting him in scratchy sweaters and calling him cute- because he was dead. No longer breathing and speaking and eating and hugging him.

“Are they dead?” Midas hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but that’s what ended up happening. He watched as his Papa openly sob once before getting himself under control while Jules couldn’t and cried openly.

But Papa nodded.

“They, uh-” He started, cutting himself off by wrapping his arm around both of them and pulling them close. Midas decided to get up and sit in his lap. “- a storm blew up after they left Igor’s, apparently. They had stopped the boat downstream at the dock but they were too far away to get to it. The acid rain came and- and-”

Papa buried his face into the top of Jules’ head, the tip of his chin touching Midas’ forehead.

“-they found a small shed to take shelter in, but the storm knocked it down while they were inside.”

It is only when Midas gets older, his later teen years, that he would realize how  _ horribly  _ they must’ve suffered. He hoped that when the shed collapsed it killed them instantly because if they didn’t that would mean that their skin burned away while they were trapped, buried alive. But the fact that instead of a casket, there were two urns full of his mother and sister’s ashes when he knew that both didn’t want to be cremated told him that they were not given that mercy.

But six year old Midas didn’t realize nor think about gruesome details such as that. He could barely understand what death meant, but he knew that his mother and sister weren't coming home ever again. He would never make another pillowfort with Marigold nor watch Mama make toys anymore. Papa hugged him tighter to his chest and Midas sobbed with the remainder of his family.


	2. i was a teenage dad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> midas adopts meows and becomes a stay at home mom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning for Midas saying and being a reformed hooligan. But other than that, good wholesome cat times.

Midas knew that Jules had not been  _ pleased  _ with him last time he got arrested, to say the least.

He knew she was serious when she told him that she was going to kick him out if he got sent to jail again. Not that it would mean he was  _ homeless-  _ with his golden touch, he could buy himself a house in no time and could afford to spend a few nights in an upscale hotel while the paperwork was finished. 

But Midas did love Jules. He really did. She did  _ everything  _ for him growing up, especially after Mom and Marigold died and Papa was gone for weeks on end. She made sure he was fed, got to school on time, walked him home, played with him- in a way, she became his mother while still being the annoying older sister. During that dark time after their father died and before he had gotten his power, she took it upon herself to get odd jobs and sell some of their things to get money so they could pay the bills and so he could eat, despite being only twelve at the time.

Midas knew he could  _ never  _ even begin to repay her for all she’s done for him. Hell, he was probably only  _ alive  _ right now and not in an orphanage because of her. The least he could do- he figures, both for her sake and his- is to  _ not  _ get sent to jail again.

The armed robbery he got locked up for wasn’t even that  _ big _ of a job. He did it to look cool, but it didn’t matter when he was in jail and a lot of people were bigger than him. He was lucky his knuckles were gold and he was able to punch the ones who thought they could bully or intimidate him. And  _ somehow _ , after getting into at least 3 prison fights, he was released for  _ good behavior.  _ The criminal justice system was weird like that, but Midas wasn’t going to question it when it worked in his favor.

Inhaling the last of his cigar, Midas leaned his head back on his pillow and blew the smoke at the ceiling, closing his eyes. Jules’  _ irate  _ face popped into his mind from the night he got arrested and she came to the jail to see him. He knew he had fucked up, he knew he was going to be in jail for a while and he knew she was pissed as hell. Midas did what he wanted to do because he  _ could,  _ but he never intended to make Jules mad or upset.

Clearly, he didn’t think it through.

_ “I’m not bailing you out. _ ” She had hissed through the little window of their booth, gripping the phone tightly to her head.  _ “And I made sure the guards aren’t accepting any of your little bribes, Midas. This is the last time I’m doing this, Midas. You think I’m fucking joking? I’m not. Have a fun time in prison.”  _ He watched her slam the receiver down and stalk off, even as Midas tried to call her from where he was sitting from. She didn’t talk to him the whole two weeks he was locked up.

The ride home was even worse. Jules drove the boat while Midas crossed his legs in the back, both wanting to lash out at her for acting so upset and wanting to apologize for what he’s done. In the end, he ended up doing the latter, feeling sheepish and stupid for botching up something as simple as armed robbery.

_ “I’m sorry.”  _ He hated how small his voice sounded, but was pleased that Jules stopped angrily chopping up carrots for dinner because it had been starting to unease him.  _ “Not for the robbery- I meant to do that. But for making you upset... and stuff.”  _ Jules put the knife down.  _ “I don’t want to make you upset, Jules.” _

Jules didn’t speak for a few seconds, and Midas had just thought of another way to apologize when his sister started talking again.  _ “I went to Frenzy Farm today to get these.”  _ She picked up the knife again and chopped the carrots, though not as violently as before.  _ “Someone asked me on the way there. “Hey, isn’t Midas your brother? Is it true he robbed that gas station?” Do you know how embarrassing that is? They looked at me like it was MY fault you robbed that place, Midas.” _

_ “I’m sorry.”  _ He really was. He had never meant to hurt Jules in any way.  _ “It’s not your fault- I chose to do it.” _

_ “Well, people don’t think that way, Midas. They know I’ve been raising you ever since Mom and Papa died, and it makes them think I’ve raised nothing but a criminal.” _

_ “Well, they’re wrong!”  _ How dare they think that!? Jules was the best sister, and nobody except his own parents would have raised him better, had they lived. Had Marigold lived as well, she would’ve been a wonderful person to raise him as well, no doubt about that.  _ “You’ve raised me wonderfully, Jules. I couldn’t have asked for someone better-” _

Jules stopped chopping again, turning around and holding the knife at him in a scary way.  _ “Midas, I got turned down for a job because of your stunt! I could’ve had a good job with a good pay at Risky Reels but when they found out what you did, they told me that they don’t “associate with criminals.” I kinda wanted that job, Midas!” _

_ “Bah, if they’re going to turn you down for that, then you don’t need to work there! Screw them! They don’t know the kind of talent they’re turning down.”  _ Jules was the best engineer he had ever seen, and for some place to turn her down because of something stupid that he did was ridiculous and not worth the space on the island.

But Jules wasn’t having it, rolling her eyes and putting the knife down on the chopping block.  _ “Midas, that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is that your actions are affecting my abilities to live my life. I don’t care if you want to graffiti under the bridge in secret or whatever, but keep it secret.”  _ Midas scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the kitchen wall. It could use a paint job. 

_ Just  _ graffiti’ing a concrete wall was child’s play. He did far more productive things than that-

_ “Midas.”  _ Jules’ voice, now much closer, made him look at her approaching him, her palms flat against the bar counter separating them.  _ “Midas, look at me.”  _ He looked at her, smelling the carrots on her hands, and the smell of metal and smelting embedded in her clothes invaded his senses.

_ “I am not going to put up with you getting sent to jail every month.”  _ He looked into her eyes, and she had that fierce look about her that told him she was resolute about her statement.  _ “I’m not going to pick you up from jail again. You get sent to jail again, Midas, and you’re not coming home.” _

She had threatened him before with this, but this time she sounded more…  _ serious.  _ Still, Midas tried to play it off, pursing his lips and shaking his head, but a hand suddenly gripped his jaw and he was forced to face his sister.

_ “I’m fucking serious Midas. I don’t care what it’s for, if you get sent to jail again, you’re not welcome here anymore.” _

Shit, she was serious. Midas tried to defend himself.  _ “It’s my house, too.” _

Jules grinned wickedly.  _ “I’m older than you, and I’m legally an adult. You’re not. That means the house is in my name, and my name only. I can kick you out whenever I want. I love you, Midas and I want you to stay here, but if you’re going to run around and be a teenage degenerate, then you’re not going to live here while you do it. I’m not going to let your stupidity affect my life, because people shun me for the stuff that you do.” _

That part of the conversation stuck with him. Jules actually didn’t mind that he wasn’t living the typical life of going to school, getting a job, having a wife and kids and settling down behind a white picket fence, but what she minded was how his  _ actions  _ was affecting her ability to live her life how she wanted to. He didn’t mean to stop Jules from living her life they way she wanted to, and he felt dumb now that he hadn’t realized what his actions were doing to her reputation.

So, during his traumatic time in jail, he got a hold of several books about spies. At first, he had been reading it just to pass the time, but the intricacies of intrigue and deception piqued his interest, and suddenly he saw what he had been doing wrong. Stunts he had been doing he either could’ve paid other people to do them or he could’ve been a lot sneakier about it. 

He paid a couple of people he knew to steal some Slurpy Barrels from the Slurpy warehouse, then got paid for reselling the barrels to  _ suppliers.  _ All in all, he doubled his money without having to do any of the dirty work himself and nobody knew that he was involved, so Jules didn’t face any public backlash.

It felt good to do it knowing that both he and Jules were free from prying eyes.

By the time he had opened his eyes back up, the smoke had dissipated and dispelled into the air and the glowing embers of his cigar had nearly faded out. Snuffing it into his golden ashtray, Midas sat up from his bed to fetch himself another one-

“Hey, Midas!” Jules’ voice echoed down the hallway. “Can you come into the living room for a moment?”

Midas rolled his eyes at being interrupted. “Yeah, hold on.” Damn, he really wanted another cigar. Sighing, Midas slipped on his house shoes and exited the bedroom, shuffling into the living room to see his sister, dressed to go outside and the keys to the boat in her hand.

“Where are we going?” He asked, not recalling any plans they had made for the day.

“Even though I  _ know  _ you’re still doing God knows what when you’re not home, I’m proud of you for not getting arrested for the last six months.”

Oh, was that it? Now that he thought about it, he really  _ had  _ been laying low lately and it certainly felt nice not being drug into the police station on a weekly basis for a petty infraction. Was Jules taking him somewhere to celebrate?

“Thanks.” He said, not quite sure what else to say- but he was happy that Jules was proud of him. “So, where are we going?” He asked again as Jules opened the front door.

“It’s a surprise.” She responded, holding the door open for him as he walked out first. “But I promise you’ll like it.”

That meant he was either going to cry or choke her out. He didn’t know which one he hoped for more. 

Nevertheless, he climbed into the backseat of the boat while Jules drove it east then south, following the river until it passed under a bridge and Jules parked it on the shores of the outskirts of Retail Row. It was a short walk to the city, one that was filled with Midas constantly pestering Jules about their destination.

“Is whatever we’re doing in Retail Row or are we just walking through it?” The only thing beyond Retail Row was a large mountain. Was she planning to throw him off of it? He certainly hoped not, as he would have to really choke her out if she did so.

“No, it’s actually in Retail Row, I promise. You’ll find out.”

“Well, then, what store-” 

“Midas, can you do me the honor of  _ shutting the fuck up?  _ You’ll find out in a minute what we’re doing.”

Midas sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rolled his eyes. “ _ Fine _ .” He really wanted to  _ know  _ what they were doing, but as Jules promised, he didn’t have to wait long. Which was good, because he could only stay quiet for maybe thirty seconds at the most.

“Wait, the pet shop?” Midas asked as Jules held the door for him, the smell and sounds of caged pets and pet food assaulting his senses. “What are we doing here?”

_ Don’t say he can get a pet cat. Please, he will- _

“Since you’ve been staying  _ home  _ more, staying out of  _ trouble- _ ”

_ He was going to burst into tears- _

“-I figured it would be good for you to have something to focus on other than running amok on the island. So, you can get a pet today if you find one you want. Though I know you’re probably going to want a cat- Midas, are you okay?”

“Yes.” He squeaked uncharacteristically. He  _ loved  _ cats. He likes dogs and stuff, too, but he really liked cats. And they liked him. He had never met a cat that didn’t want to be petted by him. They would mew so cutely and look at him with wide, adorable eyes and rub at his legs and purr-

Suddenly Jules clasped her hands in front of her chest and cooed. “Awww, Midas, you’re crying.”

“No, I’m not. You’re crying.” Shit, was he actually crying? That was slightly embarrassing. Mom had talked about getting him a cat before she passed, and after she died no one ever really spoke about getting a cat again. Getting a cat, to Midas, was a dream come true over a decade later. Rubbing at his eyes, he was surprised to find them wetter than usual. He would blame it on allergies if he had any- sometimes being perfect had its downsides. “I got something in my eye.”

Jules smiled at him, and he had to fight back a really weird sob-like reaction. “It’s fine. I know Mom had talked about getting one. It’s probably a really emotional thing for you or whatever-”

“ _ I’m _ nOT emotional.” But his  _ fucking  _ voice cracked.  _ Bloody fucking hell- _

“Sure, Midas. But hey, even if you don’t find a cat you want today-” He wants  _ all  _ of them. He could technically do that, but having that many cats would leave him no time to do his nefarious deeds. It was a hard decision to ponder. “-you can come back later and pick one out.”

Midas is glad he’s not allowed a response, thanks to a human lady that walks up to them. “Hi, welcome to Retail Pet Shop. What brings you guys in here today?”

“Hey, we’re looking for a pet, probably a cat. It’s for my brother, mostly.” Jules gestured to him, giving him the lady’s undivided attention. She smelled like wet dog and fish, but she looked pleasant enough with brown hair and a chubby face.

“What kind of cat are you interested in,..?”

“Midas.” He supplemented. He would shake her hand, but he wasn’t wearing gloves and he didn’t trust his composure right now to be able to touch her without turning her partly into gold. “And, uh… I don’t know, really.”

The woman smiled. “You just like cats, huh?”

Midas chuckled. “Yeah. I was just going to look around for a bit.”

“Well, alright. Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks.” Jules said, and she pushed him towards the section labeled “CATS/FELINES” by the large overhanging sign.

This small section of the store was heaven to Midas. Some older cats, some kittens, some even still with their mothers, all in large, clear cages that turned to look at him as he got closer. They were all so adorable Midas that didn’t know where to start.

They were all different colors and sizes. White, black, grey, orange, red, blue, multicolored. Midas looked at every single one of them closely, reminding himself that he should look at all of them and not just pick up the first one he sees-

Until he saw the most peculiar cat he’s ever seen in his life, if it could even be  _ called  _ that.

The cat was white on the body for the most part, with splotches of orange in random places, with a white bottom half of the face, right part of its face covered in orange fur and the left side covered in purple fur. It was weird and cute, and Midas gravitated towards the cat whose cage was bigger and separate from the other cats. He wondered why that was so until he saw the cat closer and noted some of it’s unusual features.

Its front paws were abnormally long and slightly separated and it had almost a human-looking chest, though it’s bottom half looked pretty cat-like to him, except it’s hind legs seemed to be longer than its arms.

“Woah.” Jules said, reading his mind. “That’s one weird cat.”

“It looks human.” Midas mused, too enraptured with the cat who was now looking at him with wide eyes to say anything actually intelligent. It’s eyes and mouth were  _ so cute- _

“That’s because he is. Well, partly.” Another pet shop worker, this time a man with a manbun, came up behind them pointing at the cat. “We found him abandoned near a dumpster in Sweaty Sands a week or so ago.” Who would  _ dare  _ to abandon such a cute and adorably mutated creature?! “Trust me, we thought he looked as weird as you guys think he is, so we did some DNA testing on him and he’s got a significant amount of human DNA in him. We figured he must have a human parent or was the result of some freaky experimenting.”

“Awww.” Jules cooed at the cat, now fully awake and hopping at the glass where Midas had been tapping it. It was pawing at his fingers through the glass, how cute! “Poor little guy. He’s not going to have an easy life.”

“No.” The worker sounded sad. “Nobody that comes in here wants him. They say either that they want just a cat or have too many of their own kids to take care of to take care of a human-cat baby. Can’t blame them, in a way. He does need more care since he does have human baby urges.”

Midas was adopting this little guy. Seriously. He would like for somebody to try and stop him.

He looked up at Jules.

Jules could read minds, apparently. Or his intentions were clearly written on his face.

“Now, Midas-” She started, but Midas really wasn’t listening. “-you just heard him. He needs special care-”

“I can take care of him.”

“Midas, you’ve never even babysat anybody before. If he needs to be bottle fed or changed, what are you going to do?”

“I’ll bottle feed him and change his diaper. I’m not ignorant on how to take care of babies, Jules.”

“I know you’re not, but…” She trailed off, looked at the worker, and then looked back at Midas. “...you’re mind’s made up, huh.”

Midas nodded. She knew his mind was set, and she turned back to the worker.

“We’ll take him.”

_____

The cat, who had been nicknamed Meows at the shop because he said it  _ very  _ clearly, was the best 50 V-buck investment Midas had ever made.

He had been reluctant to take Meows home in a cage since he had already been in a cage for so long, but when he thought about how they took a boat to get there he decided that he didn’t want Meows to attempt to swim while traveling down a river at high speeds, so he took the cage that was offered to him.

The whole way back, though, he petted and rubbed at Meows’ head and fingers through the cage, delighting when Meows would playfully nip and poke back at his touches. He was so focused on his pet that he didn’t even notice when they got home until Jules nudged him with her boot.

“We’re home. Let’s bring him inside. We gotta figure out what to feed him.”

Even though the pet shop had said Meows was pretty much half- human, they didn’t know much more than that. They had experimented with some foods and told him that he liked milk, cat food and baby food equally, and would need a mixed diet of both.

Once they had gotten inside, Midas sat down on the couch and put the cage on the couch beside him and opened the lock, waiting for Meows to make a move. At first, Meows made no movement, his eyes locked into Midas. Then  _ slowly _ , he made cautious steps outwards, poking his head out of the cage and looking all around, sniffing the air.

Midas smiled. His cat was  _ so  _ smart.

After a few, long moments of sniffing and inspecting, Meows finally fully emerged from his cage and immediately climbed into Midas’ lap, rubbing his multicolored head against his thighs and purring loudly. How could he  _ refuse  _ to pet such a cute kitty? He couldn’t. His hand instantly went to scratch at the space between Meows pointy ears, smiling broadly at the loud purring Meows gave off as he nuzzled into his legs. This was so wholesome-

A loud  _ snap!  _ had his head snapping up to see Jules with a camera.

Midas scowled as Jules laughed. “This is going in the photo album!” 

“No-” The picture popped out of the camera, and Midas caught a glimpse at his facial expression. “-I look stupid. Take a better one.” One where he didn’t look goofy. Jules brought the camera back up so fast he couldn’t get out of the shot, and the flash blinded him this time.

“Aw, Midas, don’t be shy. You’re a new dad, liven up a little!”

“Jules, I am not a  _ dad,  _ I’m a pet owner. Big difference.”

It was not until 3 months after he had brought Meows home that he realized that he had become, essentially, a stay-at-home mom. Or dad.

He was helping Meows eat from a spoon, something that he was shocked that he could even attempt, when he suddenly became self-aware of what he was doing.

He was in an old gray t-shirt and a pair of mid-calf length black pants that he hadn’t worn since he dropped out of school when he was 14. He hadn’t shaved in about a week and he had yet to actually brush his hair yet, and he was sitting barefoot in a chair, spoon feeding a half human, half cat he had adopted as his pet in a high chair with a bib on, still making a mess everywhere. And it was only seven in the morning and Midas had yet to smoke or drink coffee.

He hadn’t been out of the house for anything other than Meows-related outings or for buying stuff for the three of them since getting Meows. His old friends he used to hang out with hadn’t taken well to Midas choosing to raise Meows, and he was now deemed “old and washed up” by them. They hadn’t called or stopped by in weeks.

Hell, when was the last time he actually did something illegal?

“Meow.” 

“Oh, sorry.” Midas apologized when he realized that he had stopped feeding Meows, lost in his own train of contemplating musings. Midas gingerly put the spoon in Meows mouth and watched as the cat nearly ate half the spoon in his attempt, but managed to get most of the food in his mouth and chewed it down happily.

He may be  _ old and washed up  _ now, but seeing Meows eating off a spoon without too much of a mess warmed his golden heart to a smelting temperature. Is that what parenthood felt like? Watching your children do the simplest things with pride and fought back tears every time they did something that would seem trivial to adults that was momentous to infants?

If so, Midas was fully enjoying being a parent to a hybrid cat-human.

Seeing that the jar once full of chicken and rice mush was now empty, Midas put the spoon in the jar and put it into the sink to be washed later. By the time he had turned back around to unclip Meows from his high chair, his pet had already ripped his bib off and threw it on the floor, something Midas didn’t realize until he slipped on it and nearly fell flat on his ass.

_ Can’t take your eyes off of them for a second. _

He felt the urge to be angry, but it faded away when he saw Meows carefree expression as he kneaded his claws on the plastic of the chair. He was only three months old; he didn’t know any better. Bending down to pick the bib off the floor, Midas felt something in his hips pop at the movement.

He’s just barely 17, his joints  _ shouldn’t  _ be popping like this already.

Carefully stepping around the smeared baby food on the floor, Midas threw the bib on the side of the sink and ripped a paper towel off the roll, dampening it and walking back over to Meows to wipe some of the food off his face.

This was the worst part of feeding time to Midas. Meows still had the cat urge to bathe himself while also having the human baby urge to run around with peanut butter smeared across his face. This led to Meows trying to lick himself clean while Midas was trying to wipe away the leftover food, usually culminating in Meows getting frustrated enough to swipe at him. He had a couple of scratches on his forearms to atone to this. If Midas didn’t clean Meows, however, Meows would usually get himself halfway clean and then take off and forget the dried food stuck to his fur.

What Midas had begun to do recently was let Meows lick the food off his hands and then wash his face off afterwards. Meows would still be upset, but at least he hadn’t swiped at him recently.

Meows licked at his hands and wrists, licking all of the food off he could see in record time before looking up at Midas and holding out his now clean hands. “Meow meow!”  _ All done! _

God, he was too  _ adorable  _ for his own good. “Yes, I see that.” He gave Meows’ hands and arms a quick wipedown of the damp paper towel before moving on to wipe the orange globs of food on his face off. “Hold still.” He ended up with only a few faint red marks on his arm, and three used wet paper towels that he used to mop up the floor, table and high chair with.

All in all, a relatively easy breakfast.

Unbuckling a restless Meows from his seat, Midas put him down on the floor and watched as the cat landed on all fours and scurried into the living room, going straight for his yarn balls and knocking them everywhere. Midas still wasn’t sure exactly what  _ kinds  _ of toys he should give a cat-human mix, especially considering he didn’t know how smart and sentient Meows actually was. Meows could at least communicate to him on a human infant level, but Midas and nobody else was sure how Meows brain would develop. He was the first of his kind, after all.

He ended up getting Meows one of those  _ things  _ where you put the correct shapes in the correct holes- the  _ thing  _ being a cube with insertable shapes in all 6 sides a few weeks later. 

“I’m not doubting Meows is smart-” Jules had Meows in his lap, who was squirming to get out and run at Midas, who was unboxing the new toy and quickly assembling it together. “-but do you think this is appropriate for him?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” He responds as the box is finally put together, grabbing the plastic bag and ripping it open, dumping the colorful shapes everywhere.

As soon as the shapes were on the ground, Meows leapt out of Jules’ arm and tried to eat a blue circle.

“Meows, no, they’re not edible!” Midas scolded, taking the blue circle from Meows, who hissed as his snack was taken from him. “Meows, this is a  _ toy, not food _ . You put the right shapes in the right holes. Look.” Midas, thinking he was way too smart for this infantile contraption, put the blue circle in the circle-shaped hole-

-which was way too small for it, something Midas only figured out after several failed attempts to force it in there. 

“Yeah, M-” He could hear Jules’ sarcasm from his spot on the rug. “-you put the right shapes in the right holes.”

“Oh, shut the f _ ffff-  _ be quiet.” Midas didn’t know if Meows would be able to talk, but he didn’t want his four month old cat swearing like a sailor once he started taking him out in public. A soft paw touching his hand brought his attention back to Meows, who was trying to take the shape from his hand.

Giving the shape to Meows, Midas cleared his throat and spoke more calmly. “Now, it’s okay if you don’t know all of them. This is just-” Midas stopped talking when Meows turned the box around and put the circle in the correct hole, first try.

“Hey, good job, buddy!” Jules praised, coming off the sofa to sit across from Midas to watch and encourage Meows. “How about this one?” She picked up a bright red square and handed it to Meows, who inspected it carefully and then tried to put it in his mouth.

“Ah, ah, ah!” Midas put his hand in-between the square and Meows’ mouth, a risky maneuver but it saved the square from being slobbered on. “This is not for you to chew on.”

Meows hissed at him, but thankfully didn’t try to put it in his mouth again. Remarkably, the next place he put it in was the right hole after a few moments of turning the box around to inspect each hole. In fact, Meows got nearly every guess right the first time and was finished with the whole toy in about five minutes.

The siblings were stunned into silence, though Jules’ silence morphed into amazement and Midas’ morphed into tears.

“He’s so smart!” Midas, his eyes now suspiciously _ “leaking” _ , had picked Meows up and cradled him to his chest, scratching underneath his chin and evoking delighted purrs from the kitty. “I have a genius for a kitty! He’s just like his father!”

“ _M_ _ eow.”  _ Meows purred, and Midas openly sobbed. 

Jules joined in on the petting, scratching Meows head with Midas. “I honestly didn’t think he would know how to do it. And he’s, like, super ahead of most human babies development-wise. These are toys for two year olds.”

“You think I should start reading to him?” He was no stranger to Meows climbing up on his lap while he was trying to read the paper, though before he hadn’t thought about actually reading to him. He would have to experiment with it and see how Meows reacts to it. Who knows, Meows might end up with a reading comprehension comparable to his.

Jules shrugged. “Go for it.” She then uncrossed her legs after giving Meows one last pat and stood up. “Alright, see you guys later. I gotta go to work.”

“See you tonight. Meows, can you wave bye-bye to Jules?” Midas looked down at Meows and raised him slightly, and Meows did wave bye to Jules, and the siblings both cooed over the adorableness of the action.

Jules playfully waved back. “Bye, Meows! I’ll see you at dinner.” The door closed behind her, and Midas shifted Meows in his lap so that he was speaking more directly to his cat.

“I can’t believe you do all those shapes today. I’m really proud of you!”

“Meow me-meow!”  _ They were fun! _

“I’m glad you had fun.” Midas pressed a kiss to the top of Meows head, where the orange and purple colored fur met. “I love you.”

“I wuv you.”

**No** .

No, he did not just say that. 

Yes, it was warbly cat speech, but Meows actually just said that, daring to lookup at him expectedly like he was  _ supposed  _ to be given another kiss for saying that.

Honestly, Midas would’ve given Meows the moon if he wanted to play with it like a yarn ball right now.

He didn’t know  _ why  _ Meows saying _ “I wuv you”  _ made tears well up in his eyes again, but when Meows actually  _ hugged  _ him, Midas slapped a hand over his mouth and bit the non-golden skin of his palm in a hard effort not to burst into tears.

And then Meows  _ had  _ to go say it again. 

“I wuv you!”

The floodgates opened.

Taking his hand away from his mouth, Midas fully enveloped Meows in a tight hug as tears spilled down his cheeks. God, when was the last time someone told him that they loved him? Jules did say it every now and then to him, but they way Meows said it to him, like he really loved him because he was his “father”, struck a chord with Midas that made him sob.

He’s just  _ so  _ glad Jules isn’t here right now to see him cry because even though she would probably cry with him, she would never let him live it down. She would probably take a picture of him, too.

“I love you, too, Meows. You’re the best… cat ever.”


	3. becoming questionably cracked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> midas becomes questionably scientific in his quest to answer questions.
> 
> or jules thinks he fucking cracked like crackers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not feeling the greatest about this one but its been sitting in my drafts for a while so here it is.
> 
> plus bonus cat time :3
> 
> no warnings this time except for potty mouths

As Midas places the freshly cleaned bowl into the dish drainer, he had the thought, not for the first time, that he should really hire a maid or a butler to do the housework. He could literally turn anything to gold and have an endless supply of money, but he had yet to hire housekeeping all because his sister kept telling him  _ no _ . 

Jules was always saying that they really didn’t  _ need  _ housekeeping: they could clean the house by themselves fine. Which they  _ did,  _ but Midas would rather focus on other things than doing the dishes. Besides, no important, busy man such as himself should  _ have  _ to do his own dishes.  _ That’s what hiring help is for,  _ he tried to explain to his sister, but she was being stubborn and wouldn’t hear of it. 

And she thinks that hiring help would only get their stuff stolen.  _ Which is what background checks and locks are for!-  _ he had tried to argue, but Jules was steadfast in her position and refused to hear his arguments. Which left it to  _ him  _ to do most of the housework since Jules said that she, quote, “had a real job to work at all day.”. Tch, he had a “real job”, too! It was just far more… subtle than her job.

Midas sighed, scrubbing the frying pan free of burnt-on noodles. He would have to try another way of convincing her because he did  _ not  _ like doing dishes, especially when it was concerning burnt food. At least he could look out the window of his  _ beautiful  _ home while he scrubbed away mindlessly until the pan no longer felt dirty.

Midas gave the pan in his hold a quick look over before putting it in the dish drainer. He used to be able to feel the pan with his fingers to make sure nothing was left on there, but with his fingertips now gold, he couldn’t  _ always  _ feel the miniscule bumps of leftover food anymore so he relied on his sight to make sure it’s fully clean.

He goes to pick up the next thing to clean, and Midas notices that he’s picked up a golden cup.

There’s a couple of cups he’s turned golden, whether it be on purpose or accident, but he doesn’t remember this one. It has a familiar shape, though, and Midas shakes some excess water and soap off his hands to fully grasp and inspect the cup. The solid weight of gold made identifying whatever material it was originally made out of before impossible, but there was a small chip on the rim, near the handle that resembled his late father’s cup. In fact, the chip on this cup was in the exact same place it had been on his father’s cup for over a decade now.

But that couldn’t be right, could it? Midas shook his head. He  _ rarely  _ drank out of his father’s cup; the last time being at least a couple of months ago and he knows for a  _ fact  _ he wouldn’t have turned it gold. Even if Jules did declare he had a  _ “gold fetish” _ , Midas didn’t want  _ everything  _ gold. There were some things better left in their natural and original appearance, like the cup his father used to drink coffee out of every morning that he was home when he wasn’t running after some fabled treasure somewhere.

Midas looked in the cabinet where he kept the cup normally, assuring himself that he would open the door and see it in there-

-but he didn’t.

Confused and getting slightly worried, Midas moved the cups inside around just enough to make sure it wasn’t hiding in the back. 

It wasn’t in there. 

Looking back at the golden cup he was still holding, Midas almost didn’t want to turn the cup upside down to look at the bottom, to look for the cursive “H” that his father personally had engraved in the ceramic many, many years ago. 

Midas turned it over in his hands, and the cup almost slipped from his grasp. The “H” was there, golden but still visible. Midas quickly put the cup back in the sink and stared at it with a steely gaze, wishing it would turn  _ ungolden  _ at his will- but that was the  _ kicker  _ with his power, he couldn’t undo something once it was fully golden. Leaning on his palms on the edge of the sink, Midas shook his head in disbelief. He would  _ never  _ turn that cup gold on purpose, and seeing it gold made him really… upset. Upset  _ “he could throw the cup at the nearest bird” _ upset. The cup had been a pearly white ceramic that always felt good and solid in his hands and reminded him of his childhood- the good parts of it.

The most  _ upsetting  _ part about it is that he doesn’t remember drinking out of it, but the coffee stains inside of it told him differently. He even picked it up and sniffed it, and the lingering odor of coffee hit his nostrils as he put it back down. This didn’t make sense to Midas: he doesn’t remember drinking coffee out of his father’s cup nor does he remember it turning to gold, but apparently he has done both? Judging by the freshness of the smell, he must’ve drank out of it either early this morning or maybe the previous morning... but  _ he doesn’t remember doing that _ .

Soap is drying on his hands but Midas doesn’t care. He’s too busy staring at the golden cup in the sink that was taunting him to care. Yesterday morning, he remembers him and Jules going out to a small waffle place in Salty Springs to eat breakfast at, and he drank his coffee there. This morning however, when he tries to think about what he had for breakfast, his mind is drawing blanks. He remembers puting some bread in the toaster, but that was it.

Memory blanks like that weren’t uncommon. In fact,  _ everyone  _ on the island as far as he knew experienced them. Sometimes, it would seem like a whole month had blown by without anything remarkable happening memory-wise… like the days just blended together. But that was  _ normal _ . Normal as he knew, anyways.

But the cup… large memory gaps like this  _ shouldn’t  _ be normal for everyone, shouldn’t it? Midas thought about it. Why did  _ everyone  _ seem to have memory blanks all at once? It almost seemed like-

“Uh, Midas?”

Jules' voice startled him, making him jump and slap his golden fingers on the metal of the sink painfully. Well, it wasn’t  _ that  _ painful, but it did sting enough to make him hiss in pain and snatch his hand up to his chest.

“You good, bro?” She asked, looking suspiciously between him and the sink. “You’re staring at the sink like you want to murder whatever’s in it.”

“I, uh…” He could ask Jules if she remembers him drinking out of the cup or turning it to gold. She would be the only other person  _ to  _ know, and the only other person he trusts to ask. Looking at his elder sister and then at the sink, Midas wiped his hands off on the dish rag quickly before picking up the golden cup.

“Do you remember me doing  _ this?” _

Jules didn’t answer him immediately, instead, she stared at the cup, closely inspecting it in his hands before her expression slackened, then hardening to anger. 

“Is that  _ Papa’s  _ cup? Midas, why did you-”

“I _didn’t._ Not on purpose. I-I wouldn’t have done it on purpose.” That was the _point_ but it also _wasn’t._ He would never do it on accident and certainly _not_ on purpose. “But I don’t remember doing _this_. The last time I remember drinking out of it was months ago.”

Jules shook her head, taking a small step backwards and bracing herself in the kitchen doorway with her glove-covered palm. “Well, you must have or else it wouldn’t be gold.”

“But I don’t  _ remember  _ drinking out of it recently- here, smell it.” He pushed the cup right underneath Jules’ nose, his sister reeling her head back for a second before taking a cautious sniff of the cup.

“That’s coffee.” She said, a puzzled look raising the corner of her lip.

“Still fresh. Must’ve drank out of it within the past day or so. But we went to Annabelle’s yesterday morning for breakfast, right?” He asked.

Jules nodded. “Right. So you must’ve drank out of it today.”

“But I don’t  _ remember  _ drinking out of it. I don’t even remember breakfast. Do you?”

“Yeah, I had a bean burrito.”

“At what time?”

“Like, six?”

“I got up around seven. Do you remember what you were doing then?”

“Yeah. I was in my shop, fixing a car engine.” Jules rolled her eyes, face palming with a soft sigh, her expression softening. “Midas, it’s fine, chill out. Everyone has-”

“No, Jules, do you remember  _ exactly  _ what you were doing at that time?” He needed to know. That fact that neither he nor his sister knew exactly what happened during this morning bothered him.

Jules didn’t answer, but she did roll her eyes yet again and wave an arm at him. “I zone out when I’m working, you know that.”

“So you don’t remember?”

“Midas, I’m not going to play 21  _ fucking  _ questions with you. Look-” Jules sighed again. “-I believe you, I  _ really  _ do, when you say you wouldn’t do it on purpose. Maybe you did it by accident and you can’t remember it, I don’t know.”

“No, Jules, I… I would  _ think  _ I would remember something that momentous.” Wouldn’t he? None of this made sense, and Jules’ answers only served to fuel his curiosity. The rarity at which he used that cup was so low that he can clearly remember the times he’s used it for the last few years.

“I don’t know, Midas. Just… it was an accident, okay?” Her voice is reassuring but Midas doesn’t feel  _ reassured.  _ If anything, it only serves to provoke his ego further, pushing him to find out  _ why  _ the cup was gold and why he doesn’t remember doing it. “Don’t give yourself a migraine thinking about it too hard. Just because you’re really smart doesn’t mean you have to burn out all your brain cells over something that was an accident.”

Midas opened his mouth to retort back, but Jules had already turned around to leave the kitchen, heading back to the shed without another word. A part of him wanted to listen to Jules. Wanted to believe that he just didn’t  _ remember  _ having breakfast this morning and accidentally turned his father’s cup gold while he was drinking coffee-

-but he couldn’t. Turning the cup over in his hands, staring intently at the coffee ring on the inside of it, Midas couldn’t let it go as his mind ran wild with coincidences __ he hadn’t thought of until now. Why did everyone seem to not remember things at certain times? A memory, or part of one, floated to the forefront of his mind- he barely remembers it, but Jules and Marigold were in a little christmas play in school, and he was being held in his mother's lap as he watched his sisters do their little song and dance, and then it was over with. He didn’t remember anything past the introduction. 

Which wasn’t odd given that he was  _ maybe  _ five years old at the time, but what followed that memory was what stuck out to him: he remembers being held by his mother as she talked to some of the other parents about the play. They never said anything  _ about  _ what had happened in the play, but they all agreed it was cute and adorable.

Or that time a few years ago when him and Jules went to go get pizza somewhere. He remembers placing the order at home and they both got into their boat- but he didn’t remember going there to get the pizza or coming home with it, but he  _ does  _ remember sitting on the couch and eating the pizza with his sister while she talked about her new job at the time repairing cars. 

_ “Hey, Jules?”  _ He remembers asking her when he blinked and realized that he was eating pizza he didn’t remember getting.  _ “How much did this pizza cost?” _

_ “Uhhh…”  _ She shrugged her shoulders.  _ “I don’t know? Same as always, probably.” _

_ “Well, I mean, I don’t remember paying for it.”  _

Jules looked on the table and grabbed the receipt with two non-greasy fingers.  _ “Yeah, we paid for it. Same price as always. Unlike  _ **_someone_ ** _ , I haven’t gone to jail for armed robbery.”  _

Midas smirked. Now  _ that crime  _ was a time he did remember, although his experience in jail was one he’d rather forget.

But still. Everyone seemed to forget things at the exact same time and that didn’t seem right to Midas. It would be okay, explainable even, if they all had pisspoor memories from time to time- but not  _ everyone  _ should have memory lapses all at once, at the  _ same time. _

It bothered him.

It bothered him that… he had just  _ now  _ thought about it, as smart as he was. He was nineteen, almost twenty, and he had  _ just  _ thought about it like this?  _ To be fair,  _ he was busy most of his teenage years being a hooligan and had just gotten Meows grown up enough to where he could take care of himself, so he had been preoccupied for practically his whole life, but… he felt silly now that he just realized there was a potential issue going on.

Midas finally put the cup back down in the sink when the ache in his knuckles informed him of just how  _ hard  _ he had been gripping the golden mug. He went back to washing the dishes, but his mind was elsewhere as he looked out the window and scrubbed coffee stains and more burnt noodles.

_ What was going on to cause such a thing? _

Several months and one chaotic birthday later, Midas would have a few answers and a million more questions.

He had been conducting  _ research _ , much to Jules’ displeasure. He had tried to keep it a secret at first, but Jules, ever so sneaky and nosy, had eventually found out  _ somehow  _ despite his attempts to keep it under wraps _. _ She told him that he was probably just wasting his time on something that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe not to  _ her _ , but to him it did.

He had started with recording gaps in his memories. Times where he or Jules didn’t remember an event or suddenly, time seemed to fly by more than it should. Doing that over the course of a few weeks failed to produce any discernible patterns, but it did show him just how  _ often  _ it could occur. There would be some days where he missed large chunks of time, and then a week where he never felt like time had been lost.

Continuing his research only proved that the memory lapses were even more sporadic and random. There had been nearly a whole  _ month  _ where there was nothing out of the ordinary, then for the new few days afterwards there was hardly anything written down, and then underlined in bold the next day after that occasion was written in his handwriting: 

**JULES & I DON’T REMEMBER THESE DATES. **

That gave him one answer: there was  _ certainly something amiss.  _ In fact, Jules had been pestering him more lately about what he was doing because he had confronted her after these dates and asked her if she remembered them. She, at the time, was dismissive despite her own lack of remembrance, but he could tell that her mind was slowly changing. 

_ Good _ . He really didn’t want to actually be crazy- by himself, at least. If he was going insane, Jules would be nuts with him, too.

More recently, he had been upping his experiments a little bit. He would have a bunch of rocks in his room, turn one gold at a certain time, and write down the time and date and see if he would remember it later. For a while nothing was out of order, until once he hit the metaphorical  _ (and it felt like the literal as well) _ jackpot.

_ February 7th, 9:05 A.M. _

He didn’t remember turning the rock into gold. Thinking back, the only thing he remembered that morning was waking up and going into the bathroom to brush his teeth, eating some breakfast with Jules and Meows- then the next thing he remembered was that he played with Meow in the early afternoon while his cat listened to some radio show that came on at 10. He usually got up around seven and had breakfast by eight, so there was about two hours of time that he didn’t remember.

That was  _ a lot  _ of time for Midas.

After that, he started to write down more details about what was going on when he turned it to gold. Simple things like outside temperature, current weather-

And then he hit the jackpot  _ again _ . Lucky him.

_ February 25th, 4:27 P.M. 17.6 C. Storm approaching. _

Storm? He didn’t remember a storm happening during that time. The ground hadn’t been wet afterwards or the next morning, nor had there been any signs of the acid rain that occasionally plagued the island. He checked the weather reports to make sure, and there was no indication of any storm for that date. It didn’t add up.

If there was any part of his research that freaked him out the  _ most _ , that was it. Memory lapses were one thing, but he didn’t just  _ make  _ up a storm coming in. If he wrote down that it was approaching, that meant he could clearly see the storm clouds encroaching on the horizon. But all the weather reports said that that day had been sunny and cloud-free, even when he had double and tripled checked.

He decided to continue with his research, but to make it more focused on the weather. Whenever the weather would change, he would turn a rock to gold and write it down, even if it was as subtle as a shift in wind. He was almost  _ desperate  _ to find a pattern, a meaning to these memory gaps and missing weather data. It made him want to pull out his hair with how random and sporadic it all seemed to be.

_ March 2nd, 6:19 A.M. 15.9 C. Storm clouds on horizon. _

_ March 6th, 12:37 P.M. 18.3 C. Storm clouds on horizon. _

_ March 6th, 5:47 P.M. 17.8 C. Storm clouds on horizon. _

_ March 8th, 10:12 P.M. 16.2 C. Storm clouds on horizon. _

At last, a light at the end of the tunnel of scientific insanity- Midas  _ finally  _ saw a pattern.

It appeared that memory lapses were tied with a storm approaching that neither he nor anyone else seemed to remember. The weather reports showed no storms for that day as well. He would turn a stone to gold as a storm got close, and he wouldn’t remember it. There was no rhyme or rhythm to the dates, but there was always a storm that coincided with a memory gap. 

This is what he had been working nearly half a year for, but to actually see it in his handwriting was  _ startling _ , to say the least. Had this really been happening under all, and by all he meant every single person on this island, under their noses for God knows how long?

Despite the startling realization, Midas found it  _ impossible  _ to keep it to himself, so after Jules had come home one evening after work, Midas came to the dinner table with all of his notes and would not let Jules leave the table until she at least  _ listened  _ to what he had to say.

“Midas, I’ve been working all day at my  _ job,  _ something you wouldn’t know about-”

He figured she would put up some resistance, but Midas would  _ not  _ yield so easily. “Jules, that’s not the point! Just listen to me for a few minutes, okay?”

“Ha! Midas, you never take a  _ “few minutes”  _ to explain anything. I’m super tired, please, I don't think I can handle you right now.”

She  _ was  _ tired, he knew that- even though he had the golden touch and could turn anything he wanted to gold, Jules  _ still  _ insisted on having a normal job to help out. But at the moment, he felt like this superseded her tiredness. “Look- five minutes? Then you can go do whatever you want. Just give me five minutes, please?”

Jules crossed her tattooed arms over her chest, giving him a look that screamed  _ my little brother is being crazy again  _ and  _ God I wish I could legally beat your ass with my bare hands _ .

Fearing that she might actually get up and walk away before she heard him out, Midas gave her The Look. Wide eyes, pouty bottom lip, pleading look, hands pressed together-

Sighing, Jules looked at the clock hanging on the wall and then picked up one of her remaining chips, eating it with a loud crunch as she pointed at her brother with a stern gaze. “Five minutes. I’m timing you, Midas!”

_ Whew.  _ For a moment, he thought he was going to have to chase her down the halls to get her to listen to him. “Thank you. Now, take a look at these-” Starting his rehearsed monologue from the top, Midas opened the small sack he had been carrying and placed a few gold stones on the table in front of Jules.

She raised an eyebrow. “Gold rocks? Is that it?”   


Midas rolled his eyes. “It’s an experiment I’ve been doing. I started off by simply writing down dates and times where I experienced memory lapses, and then I started turning rocks to gold at random times and writing down when I did it.” He pulled out the notebooks he had filled up with the time and dates he had turned the rocks to gold and slid them across the table to Jules, the notebooks numbered with sticky notes in the order they were written in. He felt like he was getting somewhere when Jules flipped through the pages cautiously.

His sister raised a slim eyebrow. “September? You started back in  _ September _ ?”

Midas nodded. “Yes. It’s been a very long process. I tried all sorts of things to try and find a pattern. The first few times, I didn’t luck out. I failed to notice any sort of pattern, so I started writing more information down. And  _ that’s  _ when I finally noticed a pattern.” He moved over to the 3rd book, opening it to where he had eared the page and pointed to the fifteen line.

_ February 25th, 4:27 P.M. 17.6 C. Storm approaching. _

“We get storms sometimes.” Jules shrugged, but he watched her eyes roam down the rest of the page. She was reading, engaging with the information he had presented her. He was getting somewhere. “What’s special about this?”

“I checked the weather reports that day. There was no storm for that day, or any other dates I recorded storms for. I decided to focus on turning rocks to gold whenever I saw a storm approaching and-”

“Okay.” Jules put her hands up, leaning back in her chair with the book dropping to her lap. “Okay, hold on. First off- I’ll humor you in saying that,  _ yeah,  _ it’s weird seeing all the times we don’t remember stuff written down.”

“At the exact same time? Nearly every single time?” He questioned her, and watched her eyebrows furrowed together. Jules may not fully believe him, but she is not stupid.

“Yeah, it’s weird. But does it mean anything?” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It  _ means  _ that something happens that wipes our memories for a while and I want to know  _ why _ .” Midas watched his sister eye him for a moment, her gaze thoughtful and narrow, then turned her eyes back down to the book, reading his work.

She pointed to the most recent date of March 14th. “There wasn’t a storm that day.”

“I wrote it down that there was, Jules.”

“Midas, have you thought about maybe you’re fucking  _ cracked _ ?”

“I didn’t make it up!” At least, he  _ thought  _ he didn’t. That feeling that maybe he  _ was  _ cracked wouldn’t be shook, however. He craved the validation that he wasn’t the only one experiencing this, and that led him to a new idea, a new experiment on the spot.

“I was thinking you could help me.”

Jules slowly looked up at him. “You’re  _ not  _ turning me to gold.”

Midas rolled his eyes. “No, not  _ that.  _ I was thinking about one of your piercings.”

His sister frowned at him. “I like my piercings silver, thank you very much.”

_ Why does she have to be so difficult at times?  _ “Well, I can turn it to gold then you can sell it and buy sterling silver piercings if you want. But next time a storm comes, I’ll turn your piercing to gold and I’ll write it down, and you’ll sign it so you  _ know  _ there was a storm. And when we don’t remember it, we’ll have proof that it happened.”

Jules facepalmed, but… Midas didn’t hear a  _ no  _ incoming. Hope blossomed in his chest. “I shouldn’t be entertaining this.” She muttered lowly, but picked her head back up to look at him. “Alright,  _ fine _ . You can do it. But only if I see the storm, too.”

“Thank you, sister.”

“And… if for some reason you’re right about all of this… you can rant and rave about your little theories until the cows come home and I’ll try my best to listen.”

Midas smirked. That was a  _ dangerous  _ thing to say to someone like him. He could go on all day and night about it if uninterrupted.

But thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long to corroborate in their newfound investure. A couple of days later, Midas was stirred out of a nice cuddle session with Meows curled up at the foot of his chair who was purring loudly against his legs when the loud sound of thunder broke his reading. Slipping off his glasses, Midas carefully got up and peeled back the curtains and saw the whole sky in front of him darkened, purple clouds circling around his field of view. His heart skipped a beat.

_ This was it.  _

Hurrying to his room to grab his notebook, Midas ran outside to the shed where he could hear Jules banging away on someone’s motorcycle in there. She probably couldn’t hear the sound of approaching thunder over her own tolling. He was amazed that she wasn’t hard of hearing by this point.

“Jules!” He yelled, bursting through the garage door, startling Jules into almost dropping her mallet on her foot.

Flipping her welding helmet back, she leaned down to rest her large wrench against her workshop bench and gave him a glare of annoyance. “Midas! Jeez, what the hell-”

“Look!” Midas pointed outside, and Jules pulled up the garage door fully to peer up into the sky, her eyebrows pinching at the sight of the dark purple clouds hanging overhead.

“Huh.” She said, pursing her lips together. “I thought it was supposed to be nice today. That is a  _ big  _ storm.” She saw Midas’ hand creep into her field of view heading towards her face, and she jerked away from him before he could touch her.

“Woah! Hold on- what are you going to write down first? Let me see.”

Midas yanked his pen out from his breast pocket and started quickly writing, muttering to himself as he did so. “The date and time… temperate and the storm is approaching.” The wind was picking up, blowing his normally perfect hair into his eyes and tussling it up- but it was also a sign that they didn’t have much time left.

As soon as he was finished writing, Jules snatched the pen and notebook from him and wrote something else down.

_ “This is to prove my brother isn’t fucking crazy- Jules.”  _ Midas almost wanted to chastise her about that vulgar statement, but if it’s what makes her feel secure, then so be it. He stretched his hand out again, just a few inches from her nose piercing, waiting for her to stop him.

She doesn’t, only sighing and saying  _ “fine”  _ in a voice that showed just how much she didn’t have faith in him. A simple touch and half a second is all it takes to turn the ring gold, and-

Midas blinks.

He’s in the living room. Standing in front of the TV with a yarn ball in his hand. Meows is rolling on the floor at his feet, belly up and purring. But… this isn’t what he was doing? He thought he had just picked out a book to read from the hallway bookshelf and was making his way to his chair to entertain himself for an hour or so but apparently, that wasn’t the case.

Clearly, his reading time had been interrupted by Meows. He probably put the book down somewhere in favor of picking up his cat’s favorite yarn ball. Shaking the confusion out of his head, he bends over and rubs Meows soft belly affectionately, smiling when Meow’s human-shaped fingers reach out to grab at his feet.

He personally thinks Meows is getting too big to squirm all over the hardwood floor, but the vet told him that even though Meows may look more human than cat, he has very strong feline urges. So if Meows wants to roll all over the floor and shed everywhere, then Midas is just going to have to vacuum it up later.

“Are you doing okay today?” Most people would call him cracked for talking to a cat like that, but he’s 99% sure Meows can actually fully understand what he’s saying.

“ _ Meow _ !” Even if he can’t really speak human, Midas can perfectly understand him. Odd, but he’s not complaining. It’s truly a blessing to carry on a conversation with your cat when you can both understand each other.

Midas moves to scratch the top of his head, focusing on where the orange fur meets the dark purple. “Good boy. Have you brushed your teeth today?”

“Meow!”

“Changed your litter box?”

“Meow!”

“Gotten a bath?”

“Meow.” Not believable. Midas narrows his gaze. “A  _ human  _ bath?”

“...”

“ _ Meows _ , you know today is bath day.”

“Meow  _ meow _ .”

“This is not up for discussion. Go get your bath, Meows. And use the anti-flea and tick shampoo!”

“Meoow!”

“You’ll do it or I’ll call the vet and  _ she’ll  _ do it.”

Meows, finally realizing that he had poor options, rolled onto his front and stood up on both feet, something Midas noticed that he had done almost exclusively as of late. Not that he had never done it before, in fact Meows would often wobble around on two legs as a kitty when he would see Jules or Midas do so. 

But it was somewhat humorous to see his pet  _ cat  _ get up and sulk into the bathroom on two legs. A cat that was now quickly becoming taller  _ and  _ buffer than him. At first he had been insulted that he had been outpaced by a cat, but now that he realized that there was no catching up to Meows’ growing speed, he simply chose to sit back and laugh when Meows would jump into his lap whenever he came back from the store and nearly crush his legs when doing so.

Watching until the door closed behind Meows to make sure he didn’t try anything  _ funny _ , Midas sighed and went to sit down in his chair, sinking into the comfortable leather as he tried to remember where he put down his book. Did he even  _ get  _ a book, truly? Or… was this another memory lapse?

The idea that this could be another memory lapse sent Midas out of his chair and into his room, immediately going for his notebook and flipping to the most recent entry, only to find something else written down besides it.

“ _T_ _ his is to prove my brother isn’t fucking crazy- Jules.” _

_ Wait- _ does that mean- 

Slamming the notebook shut, Midas left his room in a rush and headed for the shed outside, the warmth of the sun and the dryness of the grass showing no signs of a storm that had come through anytime recently, bellying what had been written down apparently just thirty minutes ago.  _ There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. _

The sound of metalworking hit his ears, Midas crept under the halfway open garage door and was greeted with the sight of Jules working on the hood of a car, trying to buff out a dent in it.

“Jules!” He yelled over the clanging, trying to get his sister’s attention, but she didn’t hear him.

He tapped her shoulder, and was nearly brained with a mallet.

“Midas! Jeez, you need a bell around your neck or something.” Her nose piercing was gold.

It had happened.

Midas didn’t say anything else, but pulled out his phone and pulled up the camera on it, turning it on selfie mode and showing it to his sister.

“Wh-” She started, but stopped when her eyes landed on her now golden piercing. She yanked off a welding glove and took out the piercing, inspecting it in her hand and pressing on it to make sure it was gold. It was.

She looked up at him, eyes wide with confusion and shock. “Midas- when… when did you do  _ this?”  _ Jules went to the bathroom like an hour ago, and her piercing wasn’t gold then. She hadn’t seen Midas since this morning, so how-?

Midas flipped his notebook open to the last page that had been written on, and showed her the last entry, where she had written in it. Jules looked at it, slowly taking the book from him and kept looking. He could see the gears turning in her mind, and it took her awhile to hand the notebook back and to speak.

“Okay.” She finally said, taking off her other glove and putting down the mallet. “Okay. Let’s- let’s go inside, and you can talk my head off.”

Oh boy,  _ was he going to talk her head off. _


	4. it's not fortnite without violence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> im real creative with titles huh
> 
> in other news i feel decent about this chapter lets go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: over and underage alcohol usage, violence, murder, sexual harassment and sexual themes (nothing explicit)

The keys to the boat were dropped in his lap, their destination: a nightclub.

Midas rolled his eyes. “Finally. It shouldn’t take you that long to get dressed.”

Jules tried to trip him as he walked towards the front door. “Says the man who spends over half an hour fixing his hair in the morning.”

“Perfect people have to look perfect, Jules.”

Now legally allowed to drink by herself _ (though he knew she had been sneaking wine for years),  _ Jules told him that he could come with her and have  _ one drink of whatever he wanted  _ if he behaved himself. Done. Easy. He could behave himself for 24 hours for something as rewarding as supervised underage drinking. 

She also made sure to mention that whatever hangover he got was his own fault. Midas agreed; fair enough. He was a  _ responsible  _ adult who would take responsibility for his own actions. Always.

She ended up wanting to go to a bar in Sweaty Sands to celebrate, one that Midas may or may not have snuck in a few years prior for some underage drinking himself. Even though Midas is not a huge fan of bars given their predisposition for sweaty, drunk people dry humping you whether you liked it or not, he could go to a bar  _ one time  _ for his sister on her special day.

The moment they walked inside, Jules grabbed a hold of his arm and drug him to the barstools, plopping him down at one and smacking the table to get the bartender’s attention, a large, buff man who looked more suited to be a pro wrestler than slinging drinks.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Give me two shots of vodka.”

Midas raised an eyebrow. “Is that included in the one drink I can have?”

Jules huffed. “No, they’re both for me.” And sure enough, the moment the two shots were sat upon the bar, Jules picked both of them up and drank them both at the same time, one on either side of her mouth. Midas stared at her in shock for a moment before his surprise faded away to laughter.

“At this rate,  _ I’ll  _ be driving us home.”

Jules swallowed the bitter liquid and gave him a sideways look. “Why do you think I brought you along and set you at a one drink limit?”

Midas smirked. “Clever. And here I was thinking that you  _ actually  _ wanted to spend some drunk sibling bonding time with me.”

“I  _ do _ , but you’re being rate-limited. Can I have another shot of vodka and a Daiquiri, please?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you.” Jules, with a pleasant smile on her face that told him the vodka was already kicking in, leaned down to reach for the small pouch strapped to her leg and popped open the snap button on it. She rummaged around in it for a moment before she pulled something square and silver out and handed it to him.

“Now, Midas, this is for-” She didn’t even have to complete her sentence to realize she had just handed him a  _ condom  _ out in front of everyone. In public! Midas was  _ mortified. _

_ “Jules!”  _ He hissed, his cheeks turning a bright shade of red with flecks of gold in embarrassment. He snatched it from her in a hurry and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans, praying that nobody was paying attention. “You couldn’t have done that  _ before  _ we got here?!”

“I forgot.” But the smile on her face said that she did it on  _ purpose _ . “But I’m serious. It’s a bar. People do wild stuff. You might find somebody hot and get freaky with them in the bathroom.” Midas huffed. As  _ if.  _ Maybe when he was 15 or 16, but not when he’s 19. Besides, he had  _ much  _ higher standards than what he did back then.

But if it made her feel better, then he guessed he had no choice but to keep it. Like  _ hell  _ he was going to take it out again and humiliate himself, anyways.

Jules, clearly, failed to see his inner struggle and continued to talk about her  _ gift  _ to him _.  _ “Look, I’d rather you have it then  _ not  _ have it and we have an  _ issue.  _ You can trash it when we leave if you want to.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Midas rolled his eyes. “I  _ will  _ be, thank you very much.  _ God _ , I can’t believe you did that out in public, Jules _.”  _

“Your drinks, ma’am.” The bartender slid her her larger drink, breaking their conversation, followed by the smaller shot she ordered. Jules hummed a _ thank you _ , and poured the shot of vodka into the daiquiri and drank half of it in one go, hardly batting an eye.

Another thing about Jules- she could chug any kind of alcohol like a champ and he was not ashamed to admit that she could drink  _ much  _ more than he could. It was a fascinating sight to watch Jules drink. “Have you settled on a drink yet?” She asked, and he already had a favorite in his mind picked out. He turned to the bartender.

“You make cosmopolitans here?”

The bartender chuckled. “You pay me enough, I’ll make you whatever you want. Sure, we make them. I usually put a little bit more cranberry juice in it than other places, though.”

Midas waved a hand. “That’s fine. I’ll take one.”

“Me, too.”

“Two, then.” Midas gave his sister a playful look. “You’re going to bleed my wallet dry, sister.”

“Don’t worry, we can pay then when you throw up a fuckin’ golden rainbow.”

His conversation and attitude towards the bar and people he’s surrounded by loosens up as he takes the first sips of his drink- it actually tastes better with a little extra cranberry juice in it, he decides. Midas hates to admit it, but he’s a lightweight: by the time he’s finished his drink, he’s already feeling pleasantly buzzed and the loud music of the bar isn’t as deafening as it was fifteen minutes ago.

While he’s busy sucking the lime wheel because he  _ likes  _ lime, Jules is already ordering and sipping her new Mimosa, her cheeks now slightly flushed underneath her freckles, telling Midas she’s probably about to go bodyslam some poor bloke into the ground with her drunk dancing. Jules gets her drink down halfway before she hops out of her barstool and points at him, drink still in hand and about to go on a wild ride.

“I’m now drunk enough to go dancing.” She was also drunk enough that her words started to slur together, but Midas didn’t point it out. If he did, then  _ he  _ would be the poor bloke body slammed into the ground. She was a very aggressive drunk when pushed. “Do  _ not  _ go crazy. Remember, you’re driving the boat home.”

Midas rolled his eyes, already planning on ordering a small margarita once she had left to go dance. “I know, Jules.”

“Good.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it for a moment before turning her gaze back to him. “Feel free to drag me out of here any time past eleven- one at the latest. I don’t want to spend the night at the bar.”

Midas glanced at the watch on his wrist, noting that it was already near nine. “Alright. Have fun out there.”

She pointed at him aggressively and he watched her disappear into the sea of bodies dancing on the dancefloor, gone from his view. He watched for a few moments longer until he saw her cowlick poking up above the crowd, then turned back to the bar, confident that she was going to be fine out there.

Giving the lime a final suck, Midas drops it into his glass and slides it towards the bartender. “Get me a small Margarita, please?”

The bartender cast him a look. “What happened to the one drink rule she set for you?”

Midas blinked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden stone he always kept for occasions like this, placed it on his napkin and slid it to the bartender. 

“Like I said before, I’m a responsible adult.”

He watched the bartender pick up the stone, rolled it between his fingers for a moment and then his eyes widened as he realized that it was pure gold.

A pleased feeling passed through him when the bartender pocketed the gold stone and got to work making him another drink. Most people were easy to bribe, which is why Midas had respect for those few people who  _ couldn’t  _ be bribed, no matter how much money or gold you threw at them- those were the people with  _ real morals.  _ Those were the people you could trust- like Jules. He could offer to buy her anything she wanted to bribe her into letting him “borrow” her makeup for the occasional…  _ enhancement of his features _ , but she wouldn’t budge, telling him to go buy his own damn makeup.

As if he could go into a makeup store and buy makeup without people  _ judging  _ him.

He sipped his margarita much slower than the cosmopolitan he had earlier, wanting to make it last for the time Jules was dancing somewhere in the bar. A couple of people came up to him, tried to talk or flirt with him, but most of them just weren’t… really pretty to him. He’s not even going to  _ think  _ about the man with the Durr Burger head on trying to cozy up to him. That creature was the  _ antithesis  _ of sexual attraction.

_ Although _ ... the last guy that came up and sat down next to him was actually not that bad looking, and Midas was just feeling tipsy enough to think about a few lewd scenarios. He had light brown, almost blonde hair, green eyes, light skin tone and a strong frame to match his face. His mannerisms weren't exactly what he was looking for, but the alcohol had loosened his standards enough to where looks mattered more over personality at the moment.

They were even brushing their thighs together and Midas was actually starting to be grateful that Jules gave him the condom when a bunch of other guys came up to him, congratulating the stranger on winning a basketball game. The man clearly knew the crowd of people and got up to join them, but leaned down to whisper in his ear before he departed:

_ “If you’re still here in an hour, I’ll be out front.” _

An hour? He can wait an hour. The implication of what he would be waiting for was clear. He hasn’t had sex in, what, a year or so? He hasn’t really had any sort of relationship, let alone sex, since adopting Meows about two years ago, so actually… It's been more like two years. He can wait another hour, surely. If the firmness of the other man’s thighs were anything to go by, the wait would absolutely be worth-

“Midas?” A tap on his shoulder brought him out of the beginnings of a steamy sexual fantasy, and he turned around to see Jules looking slightly frustrated.

“Yeah?” He asked, his worry about why she had that frustrated look on her face pushing through the fog of alcohol and lust in his brain. Jules usually only had that look on her face when she had accidentally blown up something in her workshop that she had been working hard on.

“I know it’s a little early, but can we go ahead and go?”

“Wh-”  _ Jules, I was going to have a dick shoved up my ass in less than an hour!  _ “-I, I mean, yeah.”

Jules looked him up and down suspiciously. “...you were going to use that condom, weren’t you?”

“No!” He quickly denied, but the way his voice cracked said something different. He relented. “...okay, this dude and I were going to hook up in an hour.”

“Oh, well, we can just leave the  _ hic _ bar for now and you can drop me off so you can come back and get dicked down.”

“ _ Ahem,  _ I will be the one doing the dicking down, thank you very much.”  _ That is a lie and you know it, Midas.  _ Nevertheless, he downs the last few sips of his drink and slipped another gold rock on the table at the bartender before getting off the barstool. His first few steps were undoubtedly wobbly, but luckily Jules was a good solid weight to lean on. “Why do you wanna leave?” His speech was less than perfect, but he didn’t care right now because he’s sure Jules literally couldn’t say the alphabet right now if he asked.

Jules blew a raspberry. “There’s- there’s this dude kinda being a douche towards me. Don’t worry, I took care of him but he killed the mood for me.”

_ Overprotective little brother mode engaged. _

Midas looked behind them, searching for the offender. “Who?” He demanded, but Jules smacked his arm as they both clung to each other, weaving towards the front door. 

“It’s fine, Midas. Don’t blow a gasket. I took  _ care  _ of it. He’ll be real stupid to try and say anything else to me.”

Apparently, the douche was  _ really _ ,  _ really  _ stupid. Single digit IQ stupid.

They were meters from the front door when a loud voice caught their attention- rather, it was  _ what  _ he said was what caught Midas’ attention. “Hey, goth chick! Kicking me in the knee wasn’t nice.”

“Oh my God.” Jules moaned, rolling her eyes. “It’s the douche.”

“I’ll handle this.” Midas told her confidently, turning around to face the douche- who really  _ did  _ have the typical douche look to him, and narrowed his eyes at him.

“Leave my sister alone.” He growled, hoping his threatening tone would make it through the nincompoop’s skull. “She already made it clear she doesn’t want to talk to you.” He could feel Jules tugging on his arm towards the front door, and Midas let her take him a few steps backwards until the other man got up in his face. He  _ reeked  _ of alcohol.

“Listen, if I want to talk to your sister, I can talk to the bitch if I want to. She owes me an apology-”

Oh, no he just did not call Jules a bitch to  _ his  _ face. Only  _ he  _ was allowed to call Jules a bitch.

Shaking Jules’ hold off, Midas took another step towards the man, feeling the gold slowly trickle up his palms towards his wrists. It took a huge chunk of willpower to stop himself from hitting the man in his smug face.  _ He really thinks he’s hot shit calling my sister a bitch, huh?  _ “You do  _ not  _ call my sister a bitch. This is your last warning: leave us alone.”

The douche laughed in Midas’ face. A very bad move when considering he was  _ Midas _ . “She was certainly acting like one out there. You got one hell of a slut for a sister. Just wanted to show her a good time and all of a sudden she turns on me and-”

Jules pipes up before Midas could say something, which was probably a blessing in disguise for his criminal record. “Fuck you, asshole. You’re the real slut here, whipping out your micro dick on the dancefloor for everyone to see. Go crawl in a hole and leave us alone, or I’ll bust  _ both  _ of your kneecaps. Come on, M.” Jules grabbed his arm yet again, and Midas gladly followed her example and headed for the door until he was roughly shoved in the back and fell to the ground.

His quick reflexes and golden hands helped to stop his fall, and he stared at the ground and wondered  _ why  _ it was so  _ close  _ to his face until he heard Jules shriek.

Midas was up on his feet so fast the margarita he drank rose to his throat, but he bitterly swallowed it along with whatever he had eaten last. The douche had grabbed Jules by her arm and had pulled her to him way too close for Midas’ liking. But that’s not the part that infuriated him the most: it was what he was saying to her that pissed him off so bad.

“Listen here, bitch, nobody talks to me like that. You know your cheap whore ass was asking for it-” 

Jules moved a little bit quicker than Midas, raising her knee up and catching him good in his inner thigh. The douche yelped and jerked back, clutching his new injury as Midas pushed him to the ground with a hard shove. He went to kick him, but Jules grabbed him by his arm and whispered to him.

“I don’t want you to go to jail for a bar fight, Midas. Let’s go.”

As much as he wanted to pound the sniveling rat with his golden fists… Jules was right. His record had been clean for a couple of years now and he would like to keep it that way.

He let Jules drag him to the front while keeping an eye on the guy who had gotten up off the floor and was staring at him with extreme vitriol in his eyes. Midas lost sight of him as they moved through the crowd, and he had thought the man had given up until he heard him again.

_ The door was just a few meters out of reach. _ “Bitch-”

The sound of a pocket knife unsheathing is what really made Midas grab his gun that he always kept with him in a rush of adrenaline, reaching into his dark jacket at the same time the douche had decided that coming at him with a knife was a smart thing to do.

The man, meeting eyes with Midas with his long blade out, knew he had been seen, but lunged at him anyways.

Midas pulled out his gun with speed that he attributed raising a human-cat hybrid to and aimed it at the incoming threat. The man’s eyes briefly,  _ ever so briefly _ , flickered to the gun, but he didn’t stop his lunge, bringing his knife centimeters from his face.

_ Pop pop pop pop! _

He pulled the trigger four times in a blind panic, blood splattering on his face as he watched four dark holes appear in the man’s neck and chest, leaking and squirting blood like a geyser. The douche stood still as people started screaming, briefly looking down at the blood and bullet holes in his chest, and then collapsed to the ground in a growing dark puddle of blood with the knife clattering besides him.

“Midas!” He heard Jules scream from far away, just like the sounds of everything else. Her touch on his shoulder felt so far away as well. Midas kept staring at the body of the man on the floor, who was twitching and convulsing, drowning in his own blood with obscene gurgling noises, and watched as it stopped all within a matter of moments.

_ “MIDAS!” _

He had just killed him. He had killed someone.

_ “Midas! Midas, oh God, Midas, are you okay?!” _

There were hands on his face that still felt  _ so  _ far away even as he couldn’t stop staring at the body on the floor-

Blood rushed in his ears. Jules’ voice was suddenly closer. “Midas! Look at me!”

Midas opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Wordlessly, he turned to look at Jules, who was wide-eyed and bloodstained, splatters of the dark liquid blending in with her freckles and dark braids.

“Midas, it’s okay-”

“I killed him.” He said in shock, not quite believing that this was actually happening. It felt like a dream. His arms felt cold.

Jules shook her head. “He might-”

_ No.  _ “He’s dead.” Midas knew he was dead. He hit every shot, and from the way the blood spattered, he hit several major arteries. 

His shoulders were cold, and his chest was constricting making it hard to draw in oxygen. Jules’ hands on his face tightened. She had opened her mouth to speak, but before he heard her, time came rushing forward, linking everything together.

He had just shot and killed someone. In a  _ bar _ , of all places. He really didn’t know who the man was trying to stab, but Midas didn’t want neither of them to be on the receiving end of that blade, so he pulled his pistol out and shot him.

Adrenaline suddenly melded into pure, 24k panic. Midas tried desperately to suck in air through a rib cage that was stiff with golden bones. “Jules-” He whimpered out, trying to tell her that  _ he’s panicking _ , but he couldn’t. When he panicked, the gold spread through him rapidly and without control, threatening to consume him entirely-

“It’s okay, Midas.” Her eyes flickered down, and his eyes followed hers to see that his body was quickly becoming encased in gold on the outside as well. “Midas, look at me. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay-”

“No, it’s not.” His voice was strained, breathless and his heart was hammering away at a chest that was solid gold. He swallowed and felt spit get grossly squished in his golden esophagus. He shook his head rapidly and felt vertigo. “I killed him. Jules, I killed-”

“Midas, you’re panicking.”

“I _know_!” Cold golden tears streamed down his face, only quickening his transition. He knows he needs to stop it, but he  _ can’t  _ calm down, not after what he’s done. In all of his free-spirited teenage years, he’s never actually  _ killed  _ someone. And now that he’s done good for a long while, now that he has a sister and cat to care for, he’s gone and  _ fucked  _ everything up and he’ll probably be executed for murdering him-

“Midas, I’m not going to let go until you calm down.”

The gold had spread up his face, up his cheeks and had started to bleed over onto Jules’ hands. It was spreading along her body at a much slower pace than his own, but if she didn’t let go…

Midas grabbed her hands, not thinking about how it would hasten her transformation. “Let go.”  _ Let me go.  _ Midas wanted to run away, to flee from this island and not look back-

Jules shook her head. “No.” And then she pressed her forehead against his golden one, spreading it onto her skin faster. She must  _ feel  _ it, but she didn’t let go nor move away from him. “I’m not letting go until you calm down.”

If he doesn’t calm down, he’ll kill her. She’ll turn into a solid gold statue and he’ll be alone- the one thing he doesn’t  _ want  _ to be. The one thing he’s afraid of being. 

Alone.

He has to stop. Get a hold of himself. He looks down at his hands, closing his eyes and concentrating on making the spread  _ stop _ . It’s more than a simple matter of calming down because he has to mentally and physically bring himself out of that fight or flight mode, to chill the adrenaline coursing through his solidifying veins.

Desperate, he thinks about Mom and Marigold, about how he always wanted the toys his mother would make. Nine times out of ten she would tell him  _ you greedy little boy! You have to let other kids have toys, too. You can’t have all of them!  _ And how Marigold liked braiding his hair the one time it was long enough to do so. How he would be trapped into sitting still for hours as she would tie his hair with fancy little ribbons as Jules gave her _ “professional” _ nine year old opinion on how he looked.

Jules' hands were suddenly gone from his face, but they slid around his torso and she hugged him in a way he hadn’t been hugged in  _ years,  _ forehead still pressed against his _.  _ The golden tears hadn’t stopped the whole while and only leaked faster from his tear ducts at the comforting gesture against his will. _ He’s a grown man out in public, he shouldn’t cry like this- _

“It’s okay.” She murmured, and Midas realized that the gold on her arms and face was retreating, as well as the gold on his own body. His entire body deflated in relief that he had gotten himself back under control, but now more problems were emerging to the forefront of his mind. 

Legal problems.

“We need to go.” He whispered, reluctant to break the hold Jules had on him. “We need to go home and think of a-a plan or-”

“No.” Jules said. She didn’t stop hugging him, instead squeezing him tighter. “No, we’re gonna stay right here.”

“Jules.” That was  _ insanity _ ! “The cops will-”

“-see that this was in self-defense and congratulate you on protecting your sister.” She said firmly, and Midas knew that Jules was convinced of that  _ utterly prosperous  _ theory. His mouth opened to retort, and a sudden new wave of fear gripped Midas at the thought of going back to jail. Which he  _ wasn’t.  _ He would shoot his way through a police barricade if it meant not going back to jail.

He pulled away from his sister, frantically backpedaling his way towards the front door. “I don’t want to go back to jail.” He told her, his back hitting the cool glass of the door and he turned around to push it open, the warm air of the night only making him sweat more-

“Midas, no, stop!” Jules grabbed him by his arms and wheeled him around to face her, a stern look on her face that finally made Midas  _ stop  _ trying to run. “If you run, you’ll look guilty and you  _ will  _ go to jail. If you don’t run, you won’t look guilty.”

He thought it was amazing how much more she had imbibed this evening than him and she could still think  _ far  _ more clearly than he could. 

It took a few moments for his brain to process her words, but once he did he realized that she had just prevented him from doing something even  _ more  _ stupid than shooting and killing someone in a crowded bar; running away from the scene of the crime.

“Yeah.” He breathed out, his urge to run evaporating in an instant. He ran his hands through his hair and winced at the wetness coating a few strands. Midas didn't want to think about how many diseases that douche probably had that was on him now.

Jules let go of his arms.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, this time for almost doing something hasty in a moment of panic. He has more common sense than to just give into fear and panic, and he nearly lost his head.

“Midas, don’t be.” Jules reassured him, but he knew that he had really done something  _ bad  _ this time. Everybody was going to know now what he had done and, while it would probably give  _ him  _ a fierce reputation, it would probably moreso damage Jules’ in the long run. “It was us or him. You made it  _ him.”  _

Midas chuckled, the sounds of sirens quickly filling the air. “This was one hell of a birthday party, Jules. Might have to do this again next year.”

Jules shook her head, a small smile stretching across her smaller features. “At least me and this other girl fingered each other before everything went to shit.”

“Ew.” Midas scrunched up his nose, cringing. At least some of the existential dread that had been making his chest feel heavy was evaporating. “I didn’t need to hear that.”

Jules raised an eyebrow and looked at him smugly. “Well, didn’t you tell me you were about to hook up with this guy-”

“ _ Shhhh!  _ He might come back later. I think I still have a chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who ate skye's hot water confess


	5. on god

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by twitter rp (kinda)
> 
> midas can't change a lightbulb 
> 
> crack, mostly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: midas is Struggling to change a lightbulb and says some naughty words. Also thinks a lot about killing Ollie.

“M, I don’t think you’re doing it right.”

“What do you mean, Skye? I don’t think there’s a  _ wrong  _ way to change a lightbulb.”

“I didn’t think so either, but I’m pretty sure that’s not right.”

“Skye…” Huffing in annoyance, Midas continued attempting to unscrew the lightbulb from the ceiling fan in Skye’s room but kept having an exceptionally hard time in making progress… as in, none at all. _ Why is this so difficult?  _ “...the lightbulb must be corroded in here or something. It should be coming out a lot easier.”

Skye hummed. Midas stopped what he was doing and looked down at the adventurer sitting on her bed who was staring at him.

“Ollie says you’re just making excuses because you’re dumb.”

“Wh-what-” Midas spluttered, shocked and not believing that he was just insulted by a  _ hat.  _ “Excuse me, I am one of, if not  _ the _ , smartest person on this island. I am  _ not dumb.  _ Did Ollie forget that I am also in charge of the Agency?”

His youngest agent giggled, swinging her feet when she flopped backwards onto her colorful bed. “I don’t think you’re dumb, M! But Ollie does.”

Midas knew better than to argue with a  _ hat _ , but his pride and ego was on the line here. He couldn’t let his intelligence be demeaned like this. Letting go of the lightbulb for a moment, Midas facepalmed and spoke through his golden fingers as he grabbed the lightbulb again. “And why, pray tell, does Ollie think I’m dumb?”

“He says it’s because you’re a twink who loves to get pegged and who can only drink baby iced coffee.”

Midas just managed to not pull down the entire ceiling fan  _ and  _ the ceiling at that response.  _ How dare that single digit IQ accessory- _ Almost falling from the small stepping ladder he was on, he nearly broke his neck with how far he twisted it to look back at Skye. 

“Excuse me, what the hell-?”

“ _On_ _God_.”

“ _ What?” _

Skye giggled. “Ollie would like to refine his earlier statement: you are a barely legal twink.”

Midas had the bizarre yet understandable urge to shoot the hat off of Skye’s head with one of his pistols, but his lack of depth perception made his accuracy less than stellar so he couldn’t take that risk of blowing her brains out in her own room. Perhaps he could arrange for the hat to get…  _ lost  _ the next time they all did laundry. He wouldn’t miss the hat one bit, though he would have to make it up to Skye somehow.

But he could  _ not  _ let that hat, Ollie or whatever, get away with insulting him like this. Midas braced himself with a comeback as he yet again attempted to unscrew the lightbulb.

“Ollie has no right to be insulting me when it is a  _ hat. _ ” Was the only defense he could come up with at the moment as he continued to try and unscrew the lightbulb. It just  _ wouldn’t  _ come out! What in this world was wrong with it?!

“Are you  _ actually  _ okay, M?” Skye asked, sounding worried. Midas didn’t understand why; she had no need to be worried.  _ It was that hat of hers that should be shaking on top of her head. _ “Do I need to get Meows or Brutus? You’re really struggling-”

“I’m fine, Skye. I’ll get it out in a minute.” But it wouldn’t come out, no matter which way he turned it. What the actual _fuck-_ in a frustrated and probably bad move, Midas _pulled_ on the lightbulb to make it come out.

The ceiling fan made a great groaning noise, drywall and dust quickly invading his senses and making him sneeze. The sneeze paired with being on a step ladder  _ and  _ being half-blind threw Midas’ balance and coordination off. Still gripping the lightbulb, the toe of one of Midas’ feet slipped off the step of the ladder. His body weight suddenly shifted to the left, throwing him on his blind side and falling to the plush rug on the floor, taking the entire ceiling fan with him in a loud crash.

He heard Skye gasp before the ringing started in his ears, blocking out whatever else she might have said as the pain kicked in. The ceiling fan wasn’t that heavy and the fall wasn’t that great, but all of his boney joints on the side he fell on now ached something fierce. And  _ this  _ ceiling fan on top of him was pressing painfully into his arms and ribs, making him feel like there was a  _ suspiciously pink flying creature on top of his chest _ .

“Midas! Boss!” The ringing had finally subsided enough to where the sound of Skye yelling at him was even more painful than the bruises he can already feel forming on his skin. “Are you okay!? Do I need to call a doctor?”

“ _ NO.”  _ His reaction might’ve been a bit too loud, but he did  _ not  _ want everyone to know what a stupid and idiotic thing he just did.  _ Really Midas, why did you have to pull down the whole bloody ceiling fan like an imbecile…  _ “I’m fine. Just help get this  _ thing  _ off me.” He didn’t even really need her help in throwing the now useless appliance to the side, and in fact, retracted his statement when the sound of glass shattering echoed in her room. “Don’t come over here, Skye.” He called out to her. “You’ll step on glass.”

“I’m gonna go get Meows.” Skye said as Midas realized that there was  _ a lot  _ more glass on the floor than he initially realized, preventing him from getting up. Not to mention the pieces of the agent’s ceiling scattered about him, and even on top of him. Midas looked up to see Skye hopping over most of her room, climbing over a table to go to her door.

Midas opened his mouth to speak, to try and stop her from embarrassing himself even further by dragging an unnecessary third party into this, but Skye kept right on talking. “Don’t try and get up! You’ll cut yourself really bad. I’ll be back in just a minute with help!”

“Skye,  _ wait- _ !” The adventurer threw open her door and started running down the halls, yelling for Meows to help her because  _ “he broke his bones trying to change my lightbulb!”. _

This was going to be more embarrassing than the time he slipped on one of Meows’ yarn balls and threw out his back-  _ when he was 18 _ . Midas prayed for the rest of the ceiling to come down at that moment and end his suffering.

His prayers went unheard.

_ Fuck  _ Ollie, he doesn’t even think Ollie is real.


	6. midas does something very midas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> midas deepthroats a fishstick (bascially a corndog but fish) also i wrote this in discord so weird formatting
> 
> warning for: midas being slightly horny and... deepthroating a fishstick in a public resturant. And a couple of swears.

Today had gone well by Midas' standards.

He had finished his... _errand_ in Craggy Cliffs sooner than expected, and his kitten had behaved himself splendidly today. He had only had to remind Meows once that humans were _not_ scratching posts and that you could not just relieve yourself in a public space, even if he was technically an animal. So he decided to treat him to some fishsticks before they left to went home, Midas carrying Meows in one arm as if he were a human toddler instead of a cat-human hybrid toddler equivalency.

"Meow!" Meows excitedly exclaimed as he saw Midas start carrying him inside the fishstick restaurant, already squirming to be let down and to run wild. "Meow meow!"

"No, Meows, this is a _restaurant_. No running around. You're going to eat like a big boy in here, okay?"

Meows ears deflated, but he still looked very excited. And hungry. _"Mew."_

Reaching a golden hand up, Midas gave Meows' head a few scratches as he walked up to the front counter and looked at the menu. He wasn't a big fan of eating out, _but_ he didn't mind having a fishstick every now and then. They were quite tasty. He ordered himself and Meows some (a kid sized bowl), and took a seat at one of the benches outside so Meows could have a nice view as he ate his food, making sure Meows was properly seated on the bench before sitting down himself. Plus, it would be slightly less embarrassing if Meows got food everywhere if they were outside where less people were.

Tucking a napkin into the straps of Meow's overalls, Midas made sure there wasn't any fishsticks that was too large for Meows before letting him dig in. His own food was just two large fishsticks on sticks, essentially a corndog but fish-flavored, but it actually was pretty good and Midas let his thoughts drift as he ate lunch, keeping an eye on Meows just in case he decided that lunch time was over with and it was time to climb on the hanging menu signs.

It was quite pleasant until he noticed a fish family two benches in front of him, and what he presumed to be the fish father... staring.

He didn't know why the fish father was staring at him with his weird bug eyes, but he was and he wouldn't stop, even when Midas stared back for a few moments. The fish mother was busy making sure the 4 guppies at the table didn't run away or throw food everywhere, and the father kept staring.

It was starting to make Midas _very_ uncomfortable. Why in the hell was he staring at him?

His first theory was that maybe it was an enemy? But he doubted it, as the fish made no moves to pull out his cellphone or make any sort of gesture and Midas didn't see a weapon anywhere near the family table. Then maybe he had something on him, on his face? He spared a quick look at his golden hands, the right palm being nearly fully gold and showing his reflection to be void of anything abnormal.

Midas looked back up, and the father continued to stare at him. Meows was none the wiser and kept kitty munching away at his fish sticks while Midas had stopped half-way to picking up his untouched second one. What the _fuck_ was up with this fish? Can't he eat in peace without people gawking at him like this? What, did the fish want to fuck him or something? No thanks- he may be promiscuous at times, but he was _not_ into fishes with bug eyes.

...But he wasn't going to go over there and ask him to stop. Firstly because he didn't want to make a scene, and secondly because he didn't want to say anything in front of the children. He may be a dubious member of the unground world, but he wasn't a monster. But it was getting ridiculous, the fishstick a few inches from his golden fingers not as appealing as it-

Suddenly, Midas had an idea. One that would probably get him thrown out if caught, but if it stopped the fish from staring at him, then so be it.

He picked up his fishstick by the stick, not breaking eye contact with the fish father, and gave it a few kitten _(ha!)_ licks all over it before licking it once from the base of the stick to the very tip of it before sticking it in his mouth.

He got a good half of it in before he felt it get close to the back of his throat and stopped himself before he gagged- choking while deepthroating a fishstick doesn't exactly scream subtlety. The fish father finally did something other than stare at him: he blinked and moved back an incremental amount, as if he was shocked or impressed.

Midas knows he just said mentally that he would never fuck a fish with bug-eyes, but that doesn't mean he couldn't fuck _with_ them.

He pulled it back out, a small string of saliva still attached to it before shoving it in his mouth again, a little deeper this time and as smooth as butter. The fish father blinked rapidly now, and Midas twisted the stick in his mouth before he pulled it out and flashed the fish father one of his winning smiles, kissing the tip of the stick and winking-

"Meow?"

Midas coughed, his cheeks flushing red when he looked down at his kitten, who was clearly very confused and looking at him and back at the fish family. Oh dear, well, there goes the subtlety.

"I'm uh... nothing, Meows. Are you done eating?" Meows nodded, leaving just a few nibbles and the end of one fishstick in his bowl. He didn't know why, but Meows always refused to eat the very last of whatever he was eating, no matter how much food it was. Clearing his throat, Midas threw a few V-bucks on the table and dropped the fishstick he was deepthroating in Meows' bowl, taking Meows out of his seat and heading towards the bathroom so Meows could wash his hands and Midas could clean the fish grease from his mouth.

He spared one look behind him, and the fish father was staring at him until he made sultry eye contact, and _finally_ the fish broke his gaze and turned his attention back to his guppies, one of which who was about to jump off the deck and into the ocean.

So he _was_ being eye-fucked by a fish. Even though fish weren't his type, he _loved_ putting on a performance for people who thought he was sexy. Some call it prostitution- not he. He called it putting his _talents_ to good use.


End file.
